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A NI®IK]S)I§©5UFir. 

See Page 253. 



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WANDERINGS 

IN 

SOUTH AMEEICA, 

THE 

NORTH-WEST OF THE UNITED STATES, 

AND THE ANTILLES, 
IN THE TEARS 1812, 1816, 1820, & 1824, 

WITH 

ORIGINAL INSTRUCTIONS 
FOR THE PERFECT PRESERVATION OF BIRDS, &c. 

FOR 

CABINETS OF NATURAL HISTORY. 

BY CHAELES WATERTOff, ESQ. 




SIXTH EDITION. 



LONDON" : 
T. FELLOWES, LUDGATE HILL. 
1866. 



LONDON : 

R- CLAY, SON - , AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, 
BREAD STREET HILL. 



7, 

3y 




PEEFACE 



TO THE EIEST EDITION. 



I offek this book of "Wanderings" with a 
hesitating hand. It has little merit, and must 
make its way through the world as well as it can. 
It will receive many a jostle as it goes along, 
and perhaps is destined to add one more to the 
number of slain, in the field of modern criticism. 
But if it fall, it may still, in death, be useful to 
me ; for, should some accidental rover take it up, 
and, in turning over its pages, imbibe the idea of 
going out to explore Guiana, in order to give the 
world an enlarged description of that noble coun- 
try, I shall say, "fortem ad fortia misi," and 
demand the armour ; that is, I shall lay claim 
to a certain portion of the honours he will receive, 
upon the plea that I was the first mover of his 



VI PREFACE. 

discoveries ; for, as Ulysses sent Achilles to Troy, 
so I sent him to Guiana. I intended to have 
written much more at length; but days, and 
months, and years have passed away, and nothing 
has been done. Thinking it very probable that 
I shall never have patience enough to sit down 
and write a full account of all I saw and examined 
in those remote wilds, I give up the intention 
of doing so, and send forth this account of my 
" Wanderings," just as it was written at the time. 

If critics are displeased with it in its present 
form, I beg to observe, that it is not totally devoid 
of interest, and that it contains something useful. 
Several of the unfortunate gentlemen who went 
out to explore the Congo, were thankful for the 
instructions they found in it ; and Sir Joseph 
Banks, on sending back the journal, said in his 
letter, " I return your journal, with abundant 
thanks for the very instructive lesson you have 
favoured us with this morning, which far excelled, 
in real utility, everything I have hitherto seen." 
• And in another letter he says, " I hear with 
particular pleasure your intention of resuming 



PREFACE. 



your interesting travels, to which natural history 
has already been so much indebted." And again, 
" I am sorry you did not deposit some part of 
your last harvest of birds in the British Museum, 
that your name might become familiar to natu- 
ralists, and your unrivalled skill in preserving 
birds be made known to the public." And again, 
" You certainly have talents to set forth a book, 
w^hich will improve and extend materially the 
bounds of natural science." 

Sir Joseph never read the third adventure. 
Whilst I was engaged in it, death robbed England 
of one of her most valuable subjects, and deprived 
the Eoyal Society of its brightest ornament. 



WANDERINGS 

IN 

SOUTH AMERICA. 



FIRST JOURNEY. 

"nec herba, nec latens in asperis 

Radix fefellit me locis." 

In the month of April, 1812, I left the town of 
Stabroek, to travel through the wilds of Demerara and 
Essequibo, a part of ci-devant Dutch Guiana, in South 
America. 

The chief objects in view were to collect a quantity 

T ts oVect °^ ^ e s ^ ron o es ^ Wourali poison, and to reach 
the inland frontier fort of Portuguese Guiana. 

It would be a tedious journey for him who wishes to 
travel through these wilds, to set out from Stabroek on 
foot. The sun would exhaust him in his attempts to 
wade through the swamps, and the mosquitos at night 
would deprive him of every hour of sleep. 

The road for horses runs parallel to the river ; but it 
extends a very little way, and even ends before the 
cultivation of the plantation ceases. 

The only mode, then, that remains is to proceed by 
water; and when you come to the high lands, you 
may make your way through the forest on foot, or 
continue your route on the river. 



2 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



After passing the third island in the river Demerara, 
Face of the there are few plantations to be seen, and 
country. those not joining on to one another, but 
separated by large tracts of wood. 

The Loo is the last where the sugar-cane is growing. 
The greater part of its negroes have just been ordered to 
another estate ; and ere a few months shall have elapsed, 
all signs of cultivation will be lost in underwood. 

Higher up stand the sugar works of Amelia's Waard, 
solitary and abandoned ; and after passing these there 
is not a ruin 'to inform the traveller that either coffee 
or sugar has been cultivated. 

From Amelia's Waard, an unbroken range of forest 
covers each bank of the river, saving here and there 
where a hut discovers itself, inhabited by free people of 
colour, with a rood or two of bared ground about it ; or 
where the wood-cutter has erected himself a dwelling, 
and cleared a few acres for pasturage. Sometimes you 
see level ground on each side of you, for two or three 
hours at a stretch ; at other times, a gently sloping hill 
presents itself; and often, on turning a point, the eye 
is pleased wdth the contrast of an almost perpendicular 
height jutting into the water. The trees put you in 
mind of an eternal spring, with summer and autumn 
kindly blended into it. 

Here you may see a sloping extent of noble trees, 
whose foliage displays a charming variety of every 
shade, from the lightest to the darkest green and 
purple. The tops of some are crowned with bloom of 
the loveliest hue, while the boughs of others bend with 
a profusion of seeds and fruits. 

Those whose heads have been bared by time, or 
blasted by the thunder-storm, strike the eye as a 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



3 



mournful sound does the ear in music, and seem to 
beckon to the sentimental traveller to stop a moment 
or two, and see that the forests which surround him, 
like men and kingdoms, have their periods of mis- 
fortune and decay. 

The first rocks of any considerable size that are 
observed on the side cf the river, are at a 

irvOCKS. 

place called Saba, from the Indian word, 
which means a stone. They appear sloping down to 
the water's edge, not shelvy, but smooth, and their 
exuberances rounded off, and in some places deeply 
furrowed, as though they had been worn with continual 
floods of water. 

There are patches of soil up and down, and the huge 
stones amougst them produce a pleasing and novel 
effect. You see a few coffee -trees of a fine luxuriant 

growth : and nearly on the top of Saba 

Residence 

of the post- stands the house of the postholder. He is 
appointed by Government to give in his 
report to the protector of the Indians, of what is going 
on amongst them, and to prevent suspicious people 
from passing up the river. 

When the Indians assemble here, the stranger may 
have an opportunity of seeing the Aborigines, dancing 
to the sound of their country music, and painted in 
their native style. They will shoot their arrows for 
him with an unerring aim, and send the poisoned dart 
from the blow-pipe, true to its destination ; and here 
he may often view all the different shades, from the 
red savage to the white man, and from the white man 
to the sootiest son of Africa. 

Beyond this post there are no more habitations of 
white men, or free people of colour. 

b 2 



4 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



In a country so extensively covered with wood as 

Treeg this is, having every advantage that a tro- 
pical sun, and the richest mould in many 
places, can give to vegetation, it is natural to look for 
trees of very large dimensions ; but it is rare to meet 
with them above six yards in circumference. If larger 
have ever existed, they have fallen a sacrifice either to 
the axe or to fire. 

If, however, they disappoint you in size, they make 
ample amends in height. Heedless, and bankrupt in 
all curiosity, must he be, who can journey on without 
stopping to take a view of the towering mora. Its 
topmost branch, when naked with age, or dried by 
accident, is the favourite resort of the toucan. Many a 
time has this singular bird felt the shot faintly strike 
him, from the gun of the fowler beneath, and owed his 
life to the distance betwixt them. 

The trees which form these far-extending wilds are 
as useful as they are ornamental. It would take a 
volume of itself to describe them. 

The green-heart, famous for its hardness and dura- 
bility ; the hackea, for its toughness ; the ducalabali, 
surpassing mahogany; the ebony and letter-wood, vieing 
with the choicest woods of the old world ; the locust- 
tree, yielding copal ; and the hayawa and olou trees, 
furnishing a sweet-smelling .resin, — are all to be met with 
in the forest, betwixt the plantations and the rock Saba. 

Beyond this rock, the country has been little ex- 
plored ; but it is very probable that these, and a vast 
collection of other kinds, and possibly many new species, 
are scattered up and down, in all directions, through 
the swamps, and hills, and savannas of ci-devant Dutch 
Guiana. 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



5 



On viewing the stately trees around him, the natu- 
ralist will observe many of them bearing leaves, and 
blossoms, and fruit not their own. 

The wild fig-tree, as large as a common English 
The wild apple-tree, often rears itself from one of the 
tig-tree. thick branches at the top of the mora ; and 
when its fruit is ripe, to it the birds resort for nourish- 
ment. It was to an undigested seed, passing through 
the body of the bird which had perched on the mora, 
that the fig-tree first owed its elevated station there. 
The sap of the mora raised it into full bearing ; but 
now, in its turn, it is doomed to contribute a portion of 
its own sap and juices towards the growth of different 
species of vines, the seeds of which, also, the birds 
deposited on its branches. These soon vegetate, and 
bear fruit in great quantities ; so, what with their 
usurpation of the resources of the fig-tree, and the fig- 
tree of the mora, the mora, unable to support a charge 
which nature never intended it should, languishes and 
dies under its burden; and then the fig-tree, and its 
usurping progeny of vines, receiving no more succour 
from their late foster-parent, droop and perish in their 
turn. 

A vine called the bush-rope by the wood-cutters, 
The bush- on account of its use in hauling out the 
heaviest timber, has a singular appearance 
in the forests of Demerara. Sometimes you see it nearly 
as thick as a man's body, twisted like a corkscrew round 
the tallest trees, and rearing its head high above their 
tops. At other times, three or four of them, like strands 
in a cable, join tree and tree, and branch and branch 
together. Others, descending from on high, take root as 
soon as their extremity touches the ground, and appear 



6 



WANDERINGS IX SOUTH AMERICA. 



like shrouds and stays supporting the mainmast of a 
line-of-battle ship; while others, sending out parallel, 
oblique, horizontal, and perpendicular shoots in all 
directions, put you in mind of what travellers call a 
matted forest. Oftentimes a tree, above a hundred feet 
high, uprooted by the whirlwind, is stopped in its fall 
by these amazing cables of nature ; and hence it is 
that you account for the phenomenon of seeing trees, 
not only vegetating, but sending forth vigorous shoots, 
though far from their perpendicular, and their trunks 
inclined to every degree from the meridian to the 
horizon. 

Their heads remain firmly supported by the bush- 
rope ; many of their roots soon refix themselves in the 
earth, and frequently a strong shoot will sprout out per- 
pendicularly from near the root of the reclined trunk, 
and in time become a fine tree. ISTo grass grows under 
the trees, and few weeds, except in the swamps. 

The high grounds are pretty clear of underwood, and, 
with a cutlass to sever the small bush-ropes, it is not 
difficult walking among the trees. 

The soil, chiefly formed by the fallen leaves and 
decayed trees, is very rich and fertile in the 
valleys. On the hills, it is little better than 
sand. The rains seem to have carried away, and swept 
into the valleys, every particle which nature intended 
to Lave formed a mould. 
Four-footed Four-footed animals are scarce, consider- 
ing how very thinly these forests are in- 
habited by men. 

Several species of the animal commonly called tiger, 
though, in reality, it approaches nearer to the leopard, 
are found here ; and two of their diminutives, named 



FIKST JOURNEY. 



7 



tiger-cats. The tapir, the lobba, and deer afford excel- 
lent food, and chiefly frequent the swamps and low 
ground, near the sides of the river and creeks. 

In stating that four-footed animals are scarce, the 
peccari must be excepted. Three or four hundred of 
them herd together, and traverse the wilds in all 
directions, in quest of roots and fallen seeds. The 
Indians mostly shoot them with poisoned arrows. When 
wounded, they run about one hundred and fifty paces ; 
they then drop, and make wholesome food. 

The red monkey, erroneously called the baboon, is 
heard oftener than it is seen ; while the common brown 
monkey, the bisa, and sacawinki rove from tree to tree, 
and amuse the stranger as he journeys on. 

A species of the polecat, and another of the fox, are 
destructive to the Indian's poultry ; while the opossum, 
the guana, and salempenta afford him a delicious morsel. 

The small ant-bear, and the large one, remarkable for 
its long, broad, bushy tail, are sometimes seen on the 
tops of the wood-ants' nests ; the armadillas bore in the 
sand-hills, like rabbits in a warren ; and the porcupine 
is now and then discovered in the trees over your 
head. 

This, too, is the native country of the sloth. His 
looks, his gestures, and his cries, all conspire 

The sloth. 9 6 ' . ' . ^ 

to entreat you to take pity on him. These 
are the only weapons of defence which nature hath 
given him. While other animals assemble in herds, or 
in pairs range through these boundless wilds, the slo^h 
is solitary, and almost stationary \ he cannot escape 
from you. It is said, his piteous moans make the tiger 
relent, and turn out of the way. Do not, then, level 
your gun at him, or pierce him with a poisoned arrow ; 



8 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



he has never hurt one living creature. A few leaves, 
and those of the commonest and coarsest kind, are all 
he asks for his support. On comparing him with other 
animals, you would say that you could perceive defi- 
ciency, deformity, and superabundance in his com- 
position. He has no cutting teeth, and, though four 
stomachs, he still wants the long intestines of rumi- 
nating animals. He has only one inferior aperture, as 
in birds. He has no soles to his feet, nor has he the 
power of moving his toes separately. His hair is flat, 
and puts you in mind of grass withered by the wintry 
blast. His legs are too short; they appear deformed 
by the manner in which they are joined to the body ; 
and when he is on the ground, they seem as if only 
calculated to be of use in climbing trees. He has 
forty- six ribs, while the elephant has only forty ; and 
his claws are disproportionably long. Were you to 
mark down, upon a graduated scale, the different claims 
to superiority amongst the four-footed animals, this 
poor ill-formed creature's claim would be the last upon 
the lowest degree. 

Demerara yields to no country in the world in her 
wonderful and beautiful productions of the 

Birds, 

feathered race. Here the finest precious 
stones are far surpassed by the vivid tints which adorn 
the birds. The naturalist may exclaim that nature has 
not known where to stop in forming new species, and 
painting her requisite shades. Almost every one of 
those singular and elegant birds described by Buffon as 
belonging to Cayenne, are to be met with in Demerara ; 
but it is only by an indefatigable naturalist that they 
are to be found. 

The scarlet carew breeds in innumerable quantities 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



9 



in the muddy islands on the coasts of Pomauron ; the 
egrets and crabiers in the same place. They resort to 
the mud-flats at ebbing water, while thousands of sand- 
pipers and plovers, with here and there a spoonbill and 
flamingo, are seen amongst them. The pelicans go farther 
out to sea, but return at sundown to the courada trees. 
The humming-birds are chiefly to be found near the 
flowers at which each of the species of the genus is 
wont to feed. The pie, the gallinaceous, the columbine, 
and passerine tribes, resort to the fruit-bearing trees. 
You never fail to see the common vulture where 
there is carrion. In passing up the river 

The vulture. £ . 

there was an opportunity 01 seeing a pair 01 
the king of the vultures ; they were sitting on the naked 
branch of a tree, with about a dozen of the common ones 
with them. A tiger had killed a goat the day before ; 
he had been driven away in the act of sucking the 
blood, and not finding it safe or prudent to return, the 
goat remained in the same place where he had killed it ; 
it had begun to putrefy, and the vultures had arrived 
that morning to claim the savoury morsel. 

At the close of day, the vampires leave the hollow 

trees, whither they had tied at the morning's 

The vampire. J ° 

dawn, and scour along the river s banks in 
quest of prey. On waking from sleep, the astonished 
traveller finds his hammock all stained with blood. It 
is the vampire that hath sucked him. Not man alone, 
but every unprotected animal, is exposed to his depre- 
dations ; and so gently does this nocturnal surgeon 
draw the blood, that, instead of being roused, the 
patient is lulled into a still profounder sleep. There 
are two species of vampire in Demerara, and both suck 
living animals : one is rather larger than the common 



10 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



hat ; the other measures above two feet from wing to 
wing extended. 

Snakes are frequently met with in the woods betwixt 
the sea-coast and the rock Saba, chiefly near 

Snakes. 

the creeks and on the banks of the river. 
They* are large, beautiful, and formidable. The rattle- 
snake seems partial to a tract of ground known by the 
name of Canal dumber Three ; there the effects of his 
poison will be long remembered. 

The Camoudi snake has been killed from thirty to 
forty feet long ; though not venomous, his size renders 
him destructive to the passing animals. The Spaniards 
in the Oroonoque positively affirm that he grows to the 
length of seventy or eighty feet, and that he will 
destroy the strongest and largest bull. His name seems 
to confirm this ; there he is called " niatatoro," which 
literally means " bull-killer." Thus he may be ranked 
amongst the deadly snakes ; for it comes nearly to the 
same thing in the end, whether the victim dies by 
poison from the fangs, w r hich corrupts his blood and 
makes it stink horribly, or whether his body be crushed 
to mummy, and swallowed by this hideous beast. 

The whipsnake of a beautiful changing green, and 
the coral with alternate broad transverse bars of black 
and red, glide from bush to bush, and may be handled 
with safety ; they are harmless little creatures. 

The Labarri snake is speckled, of a dirty brown 
colour, and can scarcely be distinguished from the 
ground or stump on which he is coiled up ; he grows to 
the length of about eight feet, and his bite often proves 
fatal in a few minutes. 

Unrivalled in his display of every lovely colour of 
the rainbow, and unmatched in the effects of his deadly 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



11 



poison, the coimacouchi glides undaunted on, sole 
monarch, of these forests ; he is commonly known by 
the name of the bush-master. Both man and beast fly 
before him, and allow him to pursue an undisputed path. 
He sometimes grows to the length of fourteen feet. 

A few small caimen, from two to twelve feet long, may 
be observed now and then in passing up and down the 
river ; they just keep their heads above the water, and a 
stranger would not know them from a rotten stump. 
Lizards of the finest green, brown, and copper colour. 

from two inches to two feet and a half long, 
are ever and anon rustling among the fallen 
leaves, and crossing the path before you ; whilst the 
chameleon is busily employed in chasing insects round 
the trunks of the neighbouring trees. 

The fish are of many different sorts, and well-tasted 5 
but not, generally speaking, very plentiful. 
It is probable that their numbers are con- 
siderably thinned by the otters, which are much larger 
than those of Europe. In going through the overflowed 
savannas, which have all a communication with the 
river, you may often see a dozen or two of them sporting 
amongst the sedges before you. 

This warm and humid climate seems particularly 
^ ^ adapted to the producing of insects ; it gives 
birth to myriads, beautiful past description 
in their variety of tints, astonishing in their form and 
size, and many of them noxious in their qualities. 

He whose eye can distinguish the various beauties of 
uncultivated nature, and whose ear is not shut to the 
wild sounds in the woods, will be delighted in passing 
up the river Demerara. Every now and then the 
maam or tinamou sends forth one long and plaintive 



12 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 

whistle from the depth of the forest, and then stops ; 
whilst the yelping of the toucan, and the shrill voice 
of the bird called pi-pi-yo ; are heard during the interval. 
The campanero never fails to attract the attention of 
the passenger : at a distance of nearly three miles, you 
may hear this snow-white bird tolling every four or 
five minutes like the distant convent-bell. From six 
to nine in the morning, the forests resound with the 
mingled cries and strains of the feathered race ; after 
this they gradually die away. From eleven to three all 
nature is hushed as in a midnight silence, and scarce a 
note is heard, saving that of the campanero and the 
pi-pi-yo ; it is then that, oppressed by the solar heat, 
the birds retire to the thickest shade, and wait for the 
refreshing cool of evening. 

At sundown the vampires, bats, and goat-suckers 
dart from their lonely retreat, and skim along the trees 
on the river's bank. The different kinds of frogs almost 
stun the ear with their hoarse and hollow-sounding 
croaking, while the owls and goat-suckers lament and 
mourn all night long. 

About two hours before daybreak you will hear the 
red monkey moaning as though in deep distress ; the 
houtou, a solitary bird, and only found in the thickest 
recesses of the forest, distinctly articulates " houtou, 
houtou," in a low and plaintive tone, an hour before 
sunrise ; the maam whistles about the same hour ; the 
hannaquoi, pataca, and maroudi announce his near ap- 
proach to the eastern horizon, and the parrots and the 
parroquets confirm his arrival there. 

The crickets chirp from sunset to sunrise, and often 
during the day when the weather is cloudy. The 
beterouge is extremely numerous in these extensive 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



13 



wilds, and not only man, but beasts and birds, are tor- 
mented by it. Mosquitos are very rare after you pass 
the third island in the Demerara, and sand-flies but 
seldom appear. 

Courteous reader, here thou hast the outlines of an 
amazing landscape given thee ; thou wilt see that the 
principal parts of it are but faintly traced, some of 
them scarcely visible at all, and that the shades are 
wholly wanting. If thy soul partakes of the ardent 
flame which the persevering Mungo Park's did, these 
outlines will be enough for thee : they will give thee 
some idea of what a noble country this is ; and if thou 
hast but courage to set about giving the world a finished 
picture of it, neither materials to work on, nor colours 
to paint it in its true shades, will be wanting to thee. 
It may appear a difficult task at a distance ; but look 
close at it, and it is nothing at all ; provided thou 
hast but a quiet mind, little more is necessary, and the 
genius which presides over these wilds will kindly help 
thee through the rest. She will allow thee to slay the 
fawn and to cut down the mountain- cabbage for thy 
support, and to select from every part of her domain 
whatever may be necessary for the work thou art 
about ; but having killed a pair of doves in order to 
enable thee to give mankind a true and proper de- 
scription of them, thou must not destroy a third 
through wantonness, or to show what a good marks- 
man thou art.: that would only blot the picture thou 
art finishing, not colour it. 

Though retired from the haunts of men, and even 
without a friend with thee, thou wouldst not find it 
solitary. The crowing of the hannaquoi will sound in 
thine ears like the daybreak town-clock ; and the 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



wren and the thrush will join with thee in thy matin 
hymn to thy Creator, to thank Him for thy night's 
rest 

At noon the Genius will lead thee to the troely, one 
leaf of which will defend thee from both snn and rain. 
And if, in the cool of the evening, thou hast been 
tempted to stray too far from thy place of abode, and 
art deprived of light to write down the information 
thou hast collected, the fire-fly, which thou 
Hie fire fly. ^ ^ gee j n almost every bush around thee, 
will be thy candle. Hold it over thy pocket-book, in 
any position which thou knowest will not hurt it, and 
it will afford thee ample light. And when thou hast 
done with it, put it kindly back again on the next 
branch to thee. It will want no other reward for its 
services. 

When in thy hammock, should the thought of thy 
little crosses and disappointments, in thy ups and 
downs through life, break in upon thee, and throw 
thee into a pensive mood, the owl will bear 
thee company. She will tell thee that hard 
has been her fate too; and at intervals, "Whip-poor- 
Will," and " Willy come go," will take up the tale of 
sorrow. Ovid has told thee how the owl once boasted 
the human form, and lost it for a very small offence ; 
and were the poet alive 'now, he would inform thee 
that " Whip-poor- WilT' and " Willy come go " are the 
shades of those poor African and Indian slaves who 
died worn out and broken-hearted. They wail and cry 
" Whip-poor- Will/' " Willy come go," all night long ; 
and often, when the moon shines, you see them sitting 
on the green turf, near the houses of those whose 
ancestors tore them from the bosom of their helpless 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



15 



families, which all probably perished through grief and 
want, after their support was gone. 

About an hour above the rock of Saba stands the 
habitation of an Indian, called Simon, on 
the top of a hill. The side next the river is 
almost perpendicular, and you may easily throw a stone 
over to the opposite bank. Here there was an oppor- 
tunity of seeing man in his rudest state. The Indians 
who frequented this habitation, though living in the 
midst of woods, bore evident marks of attention to 
their persons. Their hair was neatly collected, and tied 
up in a knot ; their bodies fancifully painted red, and 
the paint was scented with hayawa. This gave them a 
gay and animated appearance. Some of them had on 
necklaces, composed of the teeth of wild boars slain in 
the chase ; many wore rings, and others had an orna- 
ment on the left arm, midway betwixt the shoulder and 
the elbow. At the close of day, they regularly bathed 
in the river below ; and the next morning seemed busy 
in renewing the faded colours of their faces. 

One clay there came into the hut a form which 
literally might be called the wild man of the woods. 
On entering, he laid down a ball of wax which he had 
collected in the forest. His hammock was all ragged 
and torn; and his bow, though of good wood, was 
without any ornament or polish, — " erubuit domino, 
cultior esse suo." His face was meagre, his looks for- 
bidding, and his whole appearance neglected. His long 
black hair hung from his head in matted confusion ; 
nor had his body, to all appearance, ever been painted. 
They gave him some cassava bread and boiled fish, 
which he ate voraciously, and soon after left the hut. 
As he went out, you could observe no traces in his 



16 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



countenance or demeanour which indicated that he was 
in the least mindful of having been benefited by the 
society he was just leaving. 

The Indians said that he had neither wife, nor child, 
nor friend. They had often tried to persuade him to 
come and live amongst them ; but all was of no avail. 
He went roving on, plundering the wild bees of their 
honey, and picking up the fallen nuts and fruits of the 
forest. "When he fell in with game, he procured fire 
from two sticks, and cooked it on the spot. When a 
hut happened to be in his way, he stepped in, and 
asked for something to eat ; and then months elapsed 
ere they saw him again. They did not know what had 
caused him to be thus unsettled ; he had been so for 
years : nor did they believe that even old age itself 
would change the habits of this poor, harmless, solitary 
wanderer. 

Trom Simon's, the traveller may reach the large fall 
with ease in four days. 

The first falls that he meets are merely rapids, scarce 
a stone appearing above the water in the rainy season ; 
and those in the bed of the river barely high enough to 
arrest the water's course, and, by causing a bubbling, 
show that they are there. 

With this small change of appearance in the stream 
the stranger observes nothing new till he comes within 
eight or ten miles of the great fall. Each side of the 
river presents an uninterrupted range of wood, just as it 
did below. All the productions found betwixt the plan- 
tations and the rock Saba, are to be met with here. 

From Simon's to the great fall, there are five habi- 
tations of the Indians : two of them close to the 
river's side ; the other three a little way in the forest. 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



17 



These habitations consist of from four to eight huts, 
Indian ha- situated on about an acre of ground, which 
stations. they have cleared from the surrounding 
woods. A few pappaw, cotton, and mountain cabbage- 
trees are scattered round them. 

At one of these habitations, a small quantity of the 
Wonraii poi- wourali poison was procured. It was in a 
son - little gourd. The Indian who had it, said 

that he had killed a number of wild hogs with it, and 
two tapirs. Appearances seemed to confirm what he 
said ; for on one side it had been nearly taken out to 
the bottom, at different times, which probably would 
not have been the case had the first or second trial 
failed. 

Its strength was proved on a middle-sized 

Its strength. ° x 

dog. He was wounded in the thigh, in 
order that there might be no possibility of touching a 
vital part. In three or four minutes he began to be 
affected, smelt at every little thing on the ground around 
him, and looked wistfully at the wounded part. Soon 
after this he staggered, laid himself down, and never 
rose more. He barked once, though not as if in pain. 
His voice was low and weak ; and in a second attempt 
it quite failed him. He now put his head betwixt his 
fore legs, and, raising it slowly again, he fell over on 
his side. His eye immediately became fixed ; and 
though his extremities every now and then shot con- 
vulsively, he never showed the least desire to raise up 
his head. His heart fluttered much from the time he 
laid down, and at intervals beat very strong; then 
stopped for a moment or two, and then beat again ; and 
continued faintly beating several minutes after every 
other part of his body seemed dead. 



18 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



In a quarter of an hour after he had received the 
poison he was quite motionless. 

A few miles before you reach the great 
fall, and which, indeed, is the only one 
which can be called a fall, large balls of froth come 
floating past you. The river appears beautifully marked 
with streaks of foam, and on your nearer approach the 
stream is whitened all over. 

At first, you behold the fall rushing down a bed of 
rocks, with a tremendous noise, divided into two foamy 
streams, which, at their junction again, form a small 
island covered with wood. Above this island, for a 
short space, there appears but one stream, all white 
with froth, and fretting and boiling amongst the huge 
rocks which obstruct its course. 

Higher up it is seen dividing itself into a short 
channel or two, and trees grow on the rocks which 
caused its separation. The torrent, in many places, 
has eaten deep into the rocks, and split them into 
large fragments, by driving others against them. The 
trees on the rocks are in bloom and vigour, though 
their roots are half bared, and many of them bruised 
and broken by the rushing waters. 

This is the general appearance of the fall from the 
level of the water below, -to where the river is smooth 
and quiet above. It must be remembered, that this 
is during the periodical rains. Probably, in the dry 
season, it puts on a very different appearance. There 
is no perpendicular fall of water of any consequence 
throughout it, but the dreadful roaring and rushing 
of the torrent, down a long, rocky, and moderately 
sloping channel, has a fine effect ; and the stranger 
returns well pleased with what he has seen. Xo animal, 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



19 



nor craft of any kind, could stem this downward flood. 
In a few moments the first would be killed, the second 
dashed in pieces. 

The Indians have a path alongside of it, through the 
forest, where prodigious crabwood trees grow. Up this 
path they drag their canoes, and launch them into the 
river above ; and, on their return, bring them down the 
same way. 

About two hours below this fall, is the habitation of 
an Acoway chief called Sinkerman, At 
of an Acoway night you hear the roaring of the fall from 
it. It is pleasantly situated on the top of a 
sand-hill. At this place you have the finest view the 
river Demerara affords : three tiers of hills rise in slow 
gradation, one above the other, before you, and present 
a grand and magnificent scene, especially to him who 
has been accustomed to a level country. 

Here, a little after midnight, on the 1st of May, 
was heard a most . strange and unaccountable noise ; it 
seemed as though several regiments were engaged, and 
musketry firing with great rapidity. The Indians, 
terrified beyond description, left their hammocks, and 
crowded all together, like sheep at the approach of the 
wolf. There were no soldiers within three or four 
hundred miles. Conjecture was of no avail, and all 
conversation next morning on the subject was as useless 
and unsatisfactory as the dead silence which succeeded 
to the noise. 

He who wishes to reach the Macoushi country, had 
better send his canoe over land from Sinkerrnan's to 
the Essequibo. 

There is a pretty good path, and, meeting a* creek 
! ' about three quarters of the way, it eases the labour, 

c 2 



20 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



and twelve Indians will arrive with it in the Essequibo 
in four days. 

The traveller need not attend his canoe ; there is a 
shorter and a better way. Half an hour below Sinker- 
man's he finds a little creek on the western bank of the 
Demerara, After proceeding about a couple of hundred 
yards up it, he leaves it, and pursues a west-north-west 
direction by land for the Essequibo. The path is good, 
though somewhat rugged with the roots of trees, and 
here and there obstructed by fallen ones ; it extends 
more over level ground than otherwise. There are a 
few steep ascents and descents in it, with a little brook 
running at the bottom of them ; but they are easily 
passed over, and the fallen trees serve for a bridge. 

You may reach the Essequibo wdth ease in a day and 
a half; and so matted and interwoven are the tops of 
the trees above you, that the sun is not felt once all 
the way, saving where the space which a newly fallen 
tree occupied lets in his rays upon you. The forest 
contains an abundance of wild hogs, lobbas, acouries, 
powisses, maams, maroudis, and w r aracabas, for your 
nourishment, and there are plenty of leaves to cover a 
shed, whenever you are inclined to sleep. 

The soil has three-fourths of sand in it, till you come 
within half am hour's walk of the Essequibo, 

The Essequibo. 1 

where you find a red gravel and rocks. 
In this retired and solitary tract, ^Nature's garb, to all 
appearance, has not been injured by fire, nor her pro- 
ductions broken in upon by the exterminating hand 
of man. 

Here the finest green-heart grows, and wallaba, 
purple-heart, siloabali, sawari, buletre, tauronira, and 
mora, are met with in vast abundance, far and near. 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



21 



towering up' in majestic grandeur, straight as pillars, 
sixty or seventy feet high, without a knot or branch. 

Traveller, forget for a little while the idea thou hast 
of wandering further on, and stop and look at this 
grand picture of vegetable nature ; it is a reflection of 
the crowd thou hast lately been in, and though a silent 
monitor, it is not a less eloquent one on that account. — 
See that noble purple-heart before thee ! Nature has 
been kind to it. Not a hole, not the least oozing from 
its trunk, to show that its best days are passed. 
Vigorous in youthful blooming beauty, it stands, the 
ornament of these sequestered wilds, and tacitly rebukes 
those base ones of thine own species, who have been 
hardy enough to deny the existence of Him who 
ordered it to flourish here. 

Behold that one next to it ! — Hark ! how the ham- 
merings of the red-headed woodpecker resound through 
its distempered boughs ! See what a quantity of holes 
he has made in it, and how its bark is stained with the 
drops which trickle down from them ! The lightning, 
too, has blasted one side of it. Nature looks pale and 
wan in its leaves, and her resources are nearly dried up 
in its extremities : its sap is tainted ; a mortal sickness, 
slow as a consumption, and as sure in its consequences, 
has long since entered its frame, vitiating and destroy- 
ing the wholesome juices there. 

Step a few paces aside, and cast thine eye on that 
remnant of a mora behind it. Eest part of its branches, 
once so high and ornamental, now lie on the ground in 
sad confusion, one upon the other, all shattered and 
fungus-grown, and a prey to millions of insects, which 
are busily employed in destroying them. One branch 
of it still looks healthy ! Will it recover % No, it 



22 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



cannot : Nature has already run her course, and that 
healthy-looking branch is only as a fallacious good 
symptom in him who is just about to die of a mortifi- 
cation, when he feels no more pain and fancies his dis- 
temper has left him ; it is as the momentary gleam 
of a wintry sun's ray close to the western horizon. 
— See ! while we are speaking a gust of wind has 
brought the tree to the ground, and made room for its 
successor. 

Come further on, and examine that apparently 
luxuriant tauronira on thy right hand. It boasts a 
verdure not its own \ they are false ornaments it wears ; 
the bush-rope and bird- vines have clothed it from the 
root to its topmost branch. The succession of fruit 
which it hath borne, like good cheer in the houses of 
the great, has invited the birds to resort to it, and they 
have disseminated beautiful, though destructive, plants 
on its branches, which, like the distempers vice brings 
into the human frame, rob it of all its health and 
vigour \ they have shortened its days, and probably in 
another year they will finally kill it, long before nature 
intended that it should die. 

Ere thou leavest this interesting scene, look on the 
ground around thee, and see what everything here 
below must come to. 

Behold that newly-fallen wallaba ! The whirlwind 
has uprooted it in its prime, and it has brought down 
to the ground a dozen small ones in its fall. Its bark 
has already begun to drop off! And that heart of 
mora close by it is fast yielding, in spite of its firm, 
tough texture. 

The tree w^hich thou passedst but a little ago, and 
which perhaps has laid over yonder brook for years, 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



23 



can now hardly support itself, and in a few months 
more it will have fallen into the water. 

Put thy foot on that large trunk thou seest to the 
left. It seems entire amid the surrounding fragments. 
Mere outward appearance, delusive phantom of what it 
once was ! Tread on it, and, like the fuss-ball, it will 
break into dust. 

Sad and silent mementos to the giddy traveller as he 
wanders on ! Prostrate remnants of vegetable nature, 
how incontestably ye prove what we must all at last 
come to, and how plain your mouldering ruins show 
that the firmest texture avails us nought when Heaven 
wills that we should cease to be ! — 

" The eloud-eapt towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
The solemn temples, the great globe itself, 
Yea, all which it inhabit, shall dissolve, 
And, like the baseless fabric of a vision, 
Leave not a wreck behind." 

Cast thine eye around thee, and see the thousands 
of nature's productions. Take a view of them from 
the opening seed on the surface, sending a downward 
shoot, to the loftiest and the largest trees, rising up 
and blooming in wild luxuriance ; some side by side, 
others separate ; some curved and knotty, others straight 
as lances ; all, in beautiful gradation, fulfilling the 
mandates they had received from Heaven, and though 
condemned to die, still never failing to keep up their 
species till time shall be no more. 

Eeader, canst thou not be induced to dedicate a few 
months to the good of the public, and examine with 
thy scientific eye the productions which the vast and 
well-stored colony of Demerara presents to thee ? 

What an immense range of forest is there from the 



24 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 

rock Saba to the great fall ! and what an uninterrupted 
extent before thee from it to the banks of the Essequibo ! 
Xo doubt, there is many a balsam and many a medicinal 
root yet to be discovered, and many a resin, gum, and 
oil yet unnoticed. Thy work would be a pleasing one, 
and thou mightest make several useful observations 
in it. 

Would it be thought impertinent in thee to hazard 
a conjecture, that with the resources the government of 
Demerara has, stones might be conveyed from the rock 
Saba to Stabroek, to stem the equinoctial tides, which 
are for ever sweeping away the expensive wooden piles 
round the mounds of the fort 1 Or would the timber- 
merchant point at thee in passing by, and call thee a 
descendant of La Mancha's knight, because thou main- 
tainest that the stones which form the rapids might be 
removed with little expense, and thus open the navi- 
gation to the wood-cutter from Stabroek to the great 
fall 1 Or wouldst thou be deemed enthusiastic or 
biassed, because thou givest it as thy opinion that the 
climate in these high lands is exceedingly wholesome, 
and the lands themselves capable of nourishing and 
maintaining any number of settlers ? In thy disserta- 
tion on the Indians, thou mightest hint, that possibly 
they could be induced to help the new settlers a little; 
and that, finding their labours well requited, it would 
be the means of their keeping up a constant communi- 
cation with us, which probably might be the means of 
laying the first stone towards their Christianity. They 
are a poor, harmless, inoffensive set of people, and their 
wandering and ill-provided way of living seems more 
to ask for pity from us, than to nil our heads with 
thoughts that they would be hostile to us. 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



25 



What a noble field, kind reader, for thy experimental 
philosophy and speculations, for thy learning, for thy 
perseverance, for thy kind-heartedness, for everything 
that is great and good within thee ! 

The accidental traveller who has journeyed on from 
Stabroek to the rock Saba, and from thence to the 
banks of the Essequibo, in pursuit of other things, as 
he told thee at the beginning, with but an indifferent 
interpreter to talk to, no friend to converse with, and 
totally unfit for that which he wishes thee to do, can 
merely mark the outlines of the path he has trodden, 
or tell thee the sounds he has heard, or faintly describe 
what he has seen in the environs of his resting-places ; 
but if this be enough to induce thee to undertake the 
journey, and give the world a description of it, he will 
be amply satisfied. 

It will be two days and a half from the time of 
entering the path on the western bank of the Demerara 
till ail be ready, and the canoe fairly afloat on the 
Essequibo. The new 4 rigging it, and putting every 
little thing to rights and in its proper place, cannot 
well be done in less than a day. 

After being night and day in the forest impervious 
to the sun and moon's rays, the sudden transition to 
light has a fine heart-cheering effect. Welcome as a 
lost friend, the solar beam makes the frame rejoice^ 
and with it a thousand enlivening thoughts rush at 
once on the soul, and disperse, as a vapour, every sad 
and sorrowful idea, which the deep gloom had helped 
to collect there. In coming out of the woods, you see 
the western bank of the Essequibo before you, low and 
flat. Here the river is two-thirds as broad as the 
Demerara at Stabroek. 



26 



"WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



To the northward there is a hill higher than any 
Face of the ln the Demerara; and in the south-south - 
eountry. west quarter a mountain. It is far away, 
and appears like a bluish cloud in the horizon. There 
is not the least opening on either side. Hills, valleys, 
and lowlands, are all linked together by a chain 
of forest. Ascend the highest mountain, climb the 
loftiest tree, as far as the eye can extend, whichever 
way it directs itself, all is luxuriant and unbroken 
forest. 

In about nine or ten hours from this, you get to an 
Indian habitation of three huts, on the point of an 
island. It is said that a Dutch post once stood here. 

But there is not the smallest vestige of it remaining, 
and, except that the trees appear younger than those on 
the other islands, which shows that the place has been 
cleared some time or other, there is no mark left by 
which you can conjecture that ever this was a post. 

The manv islands which you meet with 

Islands. . 

in the way, enliven and change the scene, 
by the avenues which they make, which look like the 
mouths of other rivers, and break that long-extended 
sameness which is seen in the Demerara. 

Proceeding onwards, you get to the falls and rapids. 

In the rainy season they are very tedious to 
rapTd^ aud P ass 3 an d often stop your course. In the 

dry season, by stepping from rock to rock, 
the Indians soon manage to get a canoe over them. 
Eat when the river is swollen, as it was in May, 1812, 
it is then a difficult task, and often a dangerous one too. 
At that time many of the islands were overflowed, the 
rocks covered, and the lower branches of the trees in 
the water. Sometimes the Indians were obliged to 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



27 



take every thing out of the canoe, cut a passage through 
the branches, which hung over into the river, and then 
drag up the canoe by main force. 

At one place, the falls form an oblique line quite 
across the river, impassable to the ascending canoe, and 
you are forced to have it dragged four or five hundred 
yards by land. 

It will take you five days, from the Indian habitation, 
on the point of the island, to where these falls and 
rapids terminate. 

There are no huts in the way. You must bring 
your own cassava bread along with you, hunt in the 
forest for your meat, and make the night's shelter for 
yourself. 

Here is a noble range of hills, all covered 
with the finest trees, rising majestically one 
above the other, on the western bank, and presenting 
as rich a scene as ever the eye would wish to look on. 
Nothing in vegetable nature can be conceived more 
charming, grand, and luxuriant. 

How the heart rejoices in viewing this beautiful 
landscape ! when the sky is serene, the air cool, and 
the sun just sunk behind the mountain's top. 

The hayawa-tree perfumes the woods around ; pairs 
of scarlet aras are continually crossing the river. The 
maam sends forth its plaintive note, the wren chants 
its evening song. The caprimulgus wheels in busy 
flight around the canoe, while " Whip-poor- Will " sits 
on the broken stump near the water's edge, complaining 
as the shades of night set in. 

A little before you pass the last of these 

Rocks * rapids, two immense rocks appear, nearly on 
the summit of one of the many hills which form this 



28 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



far-extending range, where it begins to fall off gradually 
to the south. 

They look like two ancient stately towers of some 
Gothic potentate, rearing their heads above the sur- 
rounding trees. What with their situation and their 
shape together, they strike the beholder with an idea 
of antiquated grandeur vdiich he will never forget. 
He may travel far and near, and see nothing like them. 
On looking at them through a glass, the summit of the 
southern one appeared crowned with bushes. The one 
to the north was quite bare. The Indians have it from 
their ancestors, that they are the abode of an evil 
genius, and they pass in the river below with a reve- 
rential awe. 

In about seven hours from these stupen- 
River Apou- ( j oug song f flie hill, vou leave the Essequibo, 

ra-poura. ' J ^ ' 

and enter the river Apoura-poura, which falls 
into it from the south. The Apoura-poura is nearly 
one-third the size of the Demerara at Stabroek. For. 
two days you see nothing but level ground, richly 
clothed in timber. You leave the Siparouni to the 
right hand, and on the third day come to a little hill. 
The Indians have cleared about an acre of ground on it, 
and erected a temporary shed. If it be not intended 
for provision ground alone, perhaps the next white man 
who travels through these remote wilds will find an 
Indian settlement here. 

Two days after leaving this, you get to a rising 
ground on the western bank, where stands a single 
hut ; and about half a mile in the forest there are a 
few more ; some of them square, and some round, with 
spiral roots. 

Here the fish called Pacou is very plentiful : it is 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



20 



perhaps the fattest and most delicious fish in Guiana. 
It does not take the hook, but the Indians decoy it to 
the surface of the water by means of the seeds of the 
crabwoocl tree, and then shoot it with an arrow. 

You are now within the borders of Macoushia, in- 
habited by a different tribe of people, called 
in&ans UsM ^ acousn i Indians ; uncommonly dexterous 
in the use of the blow-pipe, and famous for 
their skill in preparing the deadly vegetable poison, 
commonly called Wourali. - 

It is from this country that those beautiful paroquets, 
named Kessi-kessi, are procured. Here the crystal 
mountains are found ; and here the three different 
species of the ara are seen in great abundance. Here, 
too, grows the tree from which the gum elastic is got : 
it is large, and as tall as any in the forest. The wood 
has much the appearance of sycamore. The gum is 
contained in the bark ; when that is cut through, it 
oozes out very freely : it is quite white, and looks as 
rich as cream : it hardens almost immediately as it 
issues from the tree ; so that it is very easy to collect a 
ball, by forming the juice into a globular shape as fast 
as it comes out : it becomes nearly black by being 
exposed to the air, and is real India rubber without 
undergoing any other process. 

The elegant crested bird called Cock of the rock, 
admirably described by Buffon, is a native of the woody 
mountains of Macoushia. In the daytime, it retires 
amongst the darkest rocks, and only comes out to feed 
a little before sunrise, and at sunset : he is of a gloomy 
disposition, and, like the houtou, never associates with 
the other birds of the forest. 

The Indians, in the just-mentioned settlement, seemed 



30 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



to depend more on the wourali poison for killing their 
game, than upon anything else. They had only one 
gun, and it appeared rusty and neglected ; but their 
poisoned weapons were in fine order. Their 
blow-pipe blow-pipes hung from the roof of the hut? 

carefully suspended by a silk grass cord ; 
and on taking a nearer view of them, no dust seemed 
to have collected there, nor had the spider spun the 
smallest web on them ; which showed that they were 
in constant use. The quivers were close by them, with 
the jawbone of the fish Pirai tied by a string to their 
brim, and a small wicker-basket of wild cotton, which 
hung down to the centre ; they were nearly full of 
poisoned arrows. It was with difficulty these Indians 
could be persuaded to part with any of the wourali 
poison, though a good price was offered for it; they 
gave to understand that it was powder and shot to 
them, and very difficult to be procured. 

On the second day after leaving this settlement, in 
passing along, the Indians show you a place where once 
a white man lived. His retiring so far from those of 
his own colour and acquaintance seemed to carry some- 
thing extraordinary along with it, and raised a desire 
to know what could have induced him to clo so. It 
seems he had been unsuccessful, and that his creditors 
had treated him with as little mercy as the strong 
generally show to the weak. Seeing his endeavours 
daily frustrated, and his best intentions of no avail, 
and fearing that when they had taken all he had, they 
would probably take his liberty too, he thought the 
world would not be hard-hearted enough to condemn 
him for retiring from the evils which pressed so heavily 
on him, and which he had done all that an honest man 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



81 



could do, to ward off. He left his creditors to talk of 
him as they thought fit, and, bidding adieu for ever to 
the place in which he had once seen better times, he 
penetrated thus far into these remote and gloomy wilds, 
and ended his days here. 

Lak p . According to the new map of South 
America, Lake Parima, or the White Sea, 
ought to be within three or four days' walk from this 
place. On asking the Indians whether there was such a 
place or not, and describing that the water was fresh 
and good to drink, an old Indian, who appeared to be 
about sixty, said that there was such a place, and that 
he had been there. This information would have been 
satisfactory in some degree, had not the Indians carried 
the point a little too far. It is very large, said another 
Indian, and ships come to it. Now, these unfortunate 
ships were the very things which were not wanted : had 
he kept them out, it might have done, but his intro- 
ducing them was sadly against the lake. Thus you 
must either suppose that the old savage and his com- 
panion had a confused idea of the thing, and that pro- 
bably the Lake Parima they talked of was the Amazons, 
not far from the city of Para, or that it was their inten- 
tion to deceive you. You ought to be cautious in giving 
credit to their stories, otherwise you will be apt to be 
led astray. 

Many a ridiculous thing concerning the interior of 
Guiana has been propagated and received as true, 
merely because six or seven Indians, questioned sepa- 
rately, have agreed in their narrative. 

Ask those who live high up in the Demerara, and 
they will, every one of them, tell you that there is a 
nation of Indians with long tails ; that they are very 



32 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



malicious, cruel, and ill-natured ; and that the Portu- 
guese have been obliged to stop them off in a certain 
river, to prevent their depredations. They have also 
dreadful stories concerning a horrible beast, called the 
Watermanmia, which, when it happens to take a spite 
against a canoe, rises out of the river, and in the most 
unrelenting manner possible, carries both canoe and 
Indians down to the bottom with it, and there destroys 
them. Ludicrous extravagances ! pleasing to those fond 
of the marvellous, and excellent matter for a distem- 
pered brain. 

The misinformed and timid court of policy 
in Demerara was made the dupe of a savage 
who came down the Essequibo, and gave himself out 
as king of a mighty tribe. This naked wild man of 
the woods seemed to hold the said court in tolerable 
contempt, and demanded immense supplies, all which 
he got; and moreover, some time after, an invitation to 
come down the ensuing year for more, which he took 
care not to forget. 

This noisy chieftain boasted so much of his dynasty 
and domain, that the Government was induced to send 
up an expedition into his territories to see if he had 
spoken the truth, and nothing but the truth. It ap- 
peared, however, that his palace was nothing but a hut, 
the monarch a needy savage, the heir-apparent nothing 
to inherit but his father's club and bow and arrows, and 
his officers of state wild and uncultivated as the forests 
through which they strayed. 

There was nothing in the hut of this savage, saving 
the presents he had received from Government, but 
what was barely sufficient to support existence ; nothing 
that indicated a power to collect a hostile force; nothing 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



33 



that showed the least progress towards civilization. All 
was rude and barbarous in the extreme, expressive of 
the utmost poverty and a scanty population. 

You may travel six or seven days without seeing a 
hut, and when you .reach a settlement, it seldom con- 
tains more than ten. 

The further you advance into the interior, the more 
you are convinced that it is thinly inhabited. 

The day after passing the place where the white man 
lived, you see a creek on the left hand, and shortly 
after the path to the open country. Here you drag the 
canoe up into the forest, and leave it there. Your 
baggage must now be carried by the Indians. The 
creek you passed in the river intersects the path to the 
next settlement ; a large mora has fallen across it, and 
makes an excellent bridge. After walking an hour and 
a half, you come to the edge of the forest, and a savanna 
unfolds itself to the view. 

The finest park that England boasts, falls far short 
of this delightful scene. There are about two thousand 
acres of grass, with here and there a clump of trees, and 
a few bushes and single trees, scattered up and down 
by the hand of nature. The ground is neither hilly 
nor level, but diversified with moderate rises and falls, 
so gently running into one another, that the eye cannot 
distinguish where they begin nor where they end ; 
while the distant black rocks have the appearance of a 
herd at rest. Nearly in the middle there is an 
eminence, which falls off gradually on every side ; and 
on this the Indians have erected their huts. 

To the northward of them the forest forms a circle, 
as though it had been done by art ; to the eastward it 
hangs in festoons ; and to the south and west it rushes 

D 



34 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



in abruptly, disclosing a new scene behind it at every 
step as you advance along. 

This beautiful park of nature is quite surrounded by 
lofty hills, all arrayed in superbest garb of trees ; some 
in the form of pyramids, others like sugar-loaves, tower- 
ing one above the other, some rounded off, and others 
as though they had lost their apex. Here two hills 
rise up in spiral summits, and the wooded line of com- 
munication betwixt them sinks so gradually, that it 
forms a crescent ; and there the ridges of others re- 
semble the waves of an agitated sea. Beyond these 
appear others, and others past them • and others still 
further on, till they can scarcely be distinguished from 
the clouds. 

There are no sand-flies, nor bete-rouge, nor mosquitos, 
in this pretty spot. The fire-flies, during the night, 
vie in numbers and brightness with the stars in the 
firmament above; the air is pure, and the north-east 
breeze blows a refreshing gale throughout the day. 
Here the white-crested maroudi, which is never found 
in the Demerara, is pretty plentiful ; and here grows 
the tree which produces the moran, sometimes called 
balsam-capivi. 

Your route lies south from this place • and at the 
extremity of the savanna, you enter the 
iorest, and journey along a winding path 
at the foot of a hill. There is no habitation within 
this day's walk. The traveller, as usual, must sleep 
in the forest ; the path is not so good the follow- 
ing day. The hills, over which it lies, are rocky, steep, 
and rugged; and the spaces betwixt them swampy, and 
mostly knee-deep in water. After eight hours' walk, 
you find two or three Indian huts, surrounded by the 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



35 



forest ; and in little more than half an hour from these, 
yon come to ten or twelve others, where yon pass the 
night. They are prettily situated at the entrance into 
a savanna. The eastern and western hills are still 
covered with wood y but on looking to the south-west 
quarter, you perceive it begins to die away. In these 
forests you may find plenty of the trees which yield the 
sweet-smelling resin called Acaiari, and which, when 
pounded and burnt on charcoal, gives a delightful 
fragrance. 

From hence you proceed, in a south-west direction, 
through a long swampy savanna. Some of the hills, 
which border on it, have nothing but a thin coarse 
grass and huge stones on them ; others quite wooded ; 
others with their summits crowned, and their base 
quite bare ; and others again with their summits bare, 
and their base in thickest wood. 

Half of this day's march is in water, nearly up to 
the knees. There are four creeks to pass : one of them 
has a fallen tree across it. You must make your own 
bridge across the other three. Probably, were the 
truth known, these apparently four creeks are only the 
meanders of one. 

The Jabiru, the largest bird in Guiana, feeds in the 
marshy savanna through which you have 
just passed. He is wary and shy, and will 
not allow you to get within gunshot of him. 

You sleep this night in the forest, and reach an 
Indian settlement about three o'clock the next evening, 
after walking one-third of the way through wet and 
miry ground. 

But bad as the walking is through it, it is easier 
than where you cross over the bare hills, where you 

d 2 



36 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



have to tread on sharp stones, most of them lying 
edgewise. 

The ground gone over these two last days, seems con- 
demned to perpetual solitude and silence. There was 
not one four-footed animal to be seen, nor even the 
marks of one. It would have been as silent as mid- 
night, and all as still and unmoved as a monument, 
had not the jabiru in the marsh, and a few vultures 
soaring over the mountain's top, shown that it was not 
quite deserted by animated nature. There were no 
insects, except one kind of fly, about one-fourth the 
size of the common house-fly. Tt bit cruelly, and was 
much more tormenting than the mosquito on the sea- 
coast. 

This seems to be the native country of the Arrow- 
^ t root. Wherever you passed through a patch 
of wood in a low situation, there you found 
it growing luxuriantly. 

The Indian place you are now at is not the proper 
place to have come to, in order to reach the Portuguese 
frontiers. You have advanced too much to the west- 
ward. But there was no alternative. The ground 
betwixt you and another small settlement (which was 
the right place to have gone to) was overflowed ; and 
thus, instead of proceeding southward, you were obliged 
to wind along the foot of the western hills, quite out 
of your way. 

But the grand landscape this place affords, makes 
you ample amends for the time you have spent in 
reaching it. It would require great descriptive powers 
to give a proper idea of the situation these people have 
chosen for their dwelling. 

The hill they are on is steep and high, and full of 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



37 



immense rocks. The huts are not all in one place, but 
dispersed wherever they have found a place level 
enough for a lodgement. Eefore you ascend the hill, 
you see at intervals an acre or two of wood, then an 
open space, with a> few huts on it ; then wood again, 
and then an open space, and so on; till the inter- 
vening of the western hills, higher and steeper still, 
and crowded with trees of the loveliest shades, closes 
the enchanting scene. 

immense At the base of this hill stretches an im- 
piam. mense plain, which appears to the eye, on 

this elevated spot, as level as a bowling-green. The 
mountains on the other side are piled one upon the 
other in romantic forms, and gradually retire, till they 
are undiscernible from the clouds in which they are 
involved. To the south-south-west this far-extending 
plain is lost in the horizon. The trees on it, which 
look like islands on the ocean, add greatly to the beauty 
of the landscape ; while the rivulet's course is marked 
out by the seta-trees which follow its meanders. 

Not being able to pursue the direct course from 
hence to the next Indian habitation, on account of the 
floods of water which fall at this time of the year, you 
take a circuit westerly along the mountain's foot. 

At last a large and deep creek stops your progress : 
c k it is wide and rapid, and its banks very 
steep. There is neither curial nor canoe, 
nor purple-heart tree in the neighbourhood to make a 
wood skin to carry you over, so that you are obliged to 
swim across ; and by the time you have formed a kind 
of raft,- composed of boughs of trees and coarse grass, to 
ferry over your baggage, the day will be too far spent 
to think of proceeding. You must be very cautious 



38 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



before you venture to swim across this creek, for the 
alligators are numerous, and near twenty feet long. On 
the present occasion, the Indians took uncommon pre- 
cautions, lest they should he devoured by this cruel 
and voracious reptile. They cut ]ong sticks, and ex- 
amined closely the side of the creek for half a mile 
above and below the place where it was to be crossed ; 
and as soon as the boldest had swum over, he did the 
same on the other side, and then all followed. 

After passing the night on the opposite bank, which 
is well wooded, it is a brisk walk of nine hours before 
you reach four Indian huts, on a rising ground, a few 
hundred paces from a little brook, whose banks are 
covered over with coucourite and seta trees. 

This is the place you ought to have come to, two 
days ago, had the water permitted you. In crossing 
the plain at the most advantageous place, you are 
above ankle-deep in water for three hours ; the re- 
mainder of the way is dry, the ground gently rising. 
As the lower parts of this spacious plain put on some- 
what the appearance of a lake, during the periodical 
rains, it is not improbable but that this is the place 
which hath given rise to the supposed existence of the 
famed Lake Parima, or El Dorado ; but this is mere 
conjecture. 

A few deer are feeding on the coarse rough grass 
■ of this far-extending plain ; they keep at a 

distance from you, and are continually on 
the look-out. 

The spur- winged plover, and a species of the curlew, 
black, with a white bar across the wings, nearly as 
large again as the scarlet curlew on the sea-coast, 
frequently rise before you. Here, too, the Moscovy 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



39 



duck is numerous ; and large flocks of two other kinds 
wheel round you as you pass on, but keep out of 
gun-shot. The milk-white egrets, and jabirus, are dis- 
tinguished at a great distance ; and in the aeta and 
coucourite trees, you may observe flocks of scarlet and 
blue aras feeding on the seeds. 

It is to these trees that the largest sort of toucan 
resorts. He is remarkable by a large black 
spot on the point of his fine yellow bill. 
He is very scarce in Demerara, and never seen except 
near the sea-coast. 

The ants' nests have a singular appearance on this 
plain ; they are in vast abundance on those 
parts of it free from water, and are formed 
of an exceedingly hard yellow clay. They rise eight or 
ten feet from the ground, in a spiral form, impenetrable 
to the rain, and strong enough to defy the severest 
tornado. 

The wourali poison, procured in these last-mentioned 
huts seemed very good, and proved afterwards to be 
very strong. 

There are now no more Indian settlements betwixt 
you and the Portuguese frontiers. If you 

frontiers^ 686 w ^h. ^° Y * s ^ ^eir ^ or ^> ^ would be advisable 
to send an Indian with a letter from hence, 
and wait his return. On the present occasion a very 
fortunate circumstance occurred. The Portuguese com- 
mander had sent some Indians and soldiers to build a 
canoe, not far from this settlement ; they had just 
finished it, and those who did not stay with it had 
stopped here on their return. 

The soldier who commanded the rest said, he durst 
not, upon any account, convey a stranger to the fort ; 



40 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



but he added, as there were two canoes, one of them 
might be despatched with a letter, and then we could 
proceed slowly on in the other. 

About three hours from this settlement, there is a 
river called Pirarara; and here the soldiers had left 
their canoes while they were making the new one. 
From the Pirarara you get into the river Maou, and 
then into the Tacatou ; and just where the Tacatou 
falls into the Eio Branco, there stands the Portuguese 
frontier fort, called Fort St. Joachim. Prom the time 
of embarking in the river Pirarara, it takes you four 
days before you reach this fort. 

There was nothing very remarkable in passing down 
these rivers. It is an open country, producing a coarse 
grass, and interspersed with clumps of trees. The 
banks have some wood on them, but it appears stinted 
and crooked, like that on the bleak hills in England. 

The tapir frequently plunged into the river ; he was 
by no means shy, and it was easy to get a shot at him 
on land. The kessi-kessi paroquets were in great 
abundance ; and the fine scarlet aras innumerable in 
the coucourite trees at a distance from the river's bank. 
In the Tacatou was seen the troupiale. It was charm- 
ing to hear the sweet and plaintive notes of this pretty 
songster of the wilds. The Portuguese call it the 
nightingale of Guiana. 

Towards the close of the fourth evening, the canoe, 
which had been sent on with a letter, met us 

Message 7 

from the Por- with the commander's answer. During its 

tuguese com- ° 

mander. absence, the nights had been cold and stormy, 
the rain had fallen in torrents, the days cloudy, and 
there was no sun to dry the wet hammocks. Ex- 
posed thus, day and night, to the chilling blast and 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



41 



pelting shower, strength of constitution at last failed, 
and a severe fever came on. The commander's answer 
was very polite. He remarked, he regretted much to 
say, that he had received orders to allow no stranger to 
enter the frontier, and this being the case, he hoped I 
would not consider him as uncivil: " However," con- 
tinued he, "I have ordered the soldier to land you at a 
certain distance from the fort, where we can consult 
together/' 

We had now arrived at the place, and the canoe 
which brought the letter returned to the fort, to tell 
the commander I had fallen sick. 

The sun had not risen above an hour the morning 
after, when the Portuguese officer came to the spot 
where we had landed the preceding evening. He was 
tall and spare, and appeared to be from fifty to fifty- 
five years old ; and though thirty years of service 
under an equatorial sun had burnt and shrivelled up 
his face, still there was something in it so inexpressibly 
affable and kind, that it set you immediately at your 
ease. He came close up to the hammock, and taking 
hold of my wrist to feel the pulse, " I am sorry, sir," 
said he, " to see that the fever has taken such hold of 
you. You shall go directly with me," continued he, 
" to the fort ; and though we have no doctor there, I 
trust," added he, " we shall soon bring you about again. 
The orders I have received forbidding the admission of 
strangers, were never intended to be put in force against 
a sick. English, gentleman." 

As the canoe was proceeding slowly down the river 
towards the fort, the commander asked, with much more 
interest than a question in ordinary conversation is 
asked, where was I on the night of the 1st of May? 



42 



"WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



On telling him that I was at an Indian settlement a 
little below the great fall in the Demerara, and that a 
strange and sudden noise had alarmed all the Indians, 
he said the same astonishing noise had roused every 
man in Fort St. Joachim, and that they remained under 
arms till morning. He observed, that he had been 
quite at a loss to form any idea what could "have caused 
the noise ; but now learning that the same noise had 
been heard at the same time far away from the Eio 
Branco, it struck him there must have been an earth- 
quake somewhere or other. 

Good nourishment and rest, and the unwearied atten- 
tion and kindness of the Portuguese commander, stopped 
the progress of the fever, and enabled me to walk about 
in six days. 

Fort St. Joachim was built about flve-and- 
JoacMnP' years ago, under the apprehension, it 

is said, that the Spaniards were coming from 
the Eio Segro to settle there. It has been much neg- 
lected ; the floods of water have carried away the gate, 
and destroyed the wall on each side of it ; but the 
present commander is putting it into thorough repair. 
When finished, it will mount six nine, and six twelve 
pounders. 

In a straight line with, the fort, and within a few 
yards of the river, stand the commander's house, the 
barracks, the chapel, the father confessor's house, and 
two others, all at little intervals from each other ; and 
these are the only buildings at Fort St. Joachim. The 
neighbouring extensive plains afford good pasturage for 
a fine breed of cattle, and the Portuguese make enough 
of butter and cheese for their own consumption. 

On asking the old officer if there were such a place 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



43 



as Lake Pariina, or El Dorado, lie replied, he looked 
upon it as imaginary altogether. " I have been above 
forty years/' added he, "in Portuguese Guiana, but 
have never yet met with anybody who has seen the 
lake." 

So much for Lake Parima, or El Dorado, or the 
White Sea. Its existence at best seems doubtful ; some 
affirm that there is such a place, and others deny it. 

" Graminatici certant, et adhuc sub judice lis est." 

Having now reached the Portuguese inland frontier, 
Wouraiipoi- an( ^ collected a sufficient quantity of the 
80114 wourali poison, nothing remains but to give 

a brief account of its composition, its effects, its uses, 
and its supposed antidotes. 

Jt has been already remarked, that in the extensive 
wilds of Demerara and Essequibo, far away from any 
European settlement, there is a tribe of Indians who 
are known by the name of Macoushi. 

Though the wourali poison is used by all the South 
American savages betwixt the Amazons and the Oroo- 
noque, still this tribe makes it stronger than any of the 
rest. The Indians in the vicinity of the Eio Negro 
are aware of this, and come to the Macoushi country to 
purchase it. 

Much has been said concerning this fatal and extra- 
ordinary poison. Some have affirmed that 

Its effects. . ™ , . . _ _ 

its effects are almost instantaneous, provided 
the minutest particle of it mixes with the blood ; and 
others again have maintained that it is not strong 
enough to kill an animal of the size and strength of a 
man. The first have erred by lending a too willing ear 
to the marvellous, and believing assertions without 



44 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



sufficient proof. The following short story points out 
the necessity of a cautious examination. 

One day, on asking an Indian if he 
thought the poison would kill a man, he 
replied, that they always go to battle with it ; that 
he was standing by when an Indian was shot with a 
poisoned arrow, and that he expired almost immedi- 
ately. Not wishing to dispute this apparently satisfac- 
tory information, the subject was dropped. However, 
about an hour after, haying purposely asked him in 
what part of the body the said Indian was wounded, he 
answered without hesitation, that the arrow entered 
betwixt his shoulders, and passed quite through his 
heart. Was it the weapon, or the strength of the 
poison, that brought an immediate dissolution in this 
case 1 Of course the weapon. 

The second have been misled by disappoinment, 
caused by neglect in keeping the poisoned arrows, or 
by not knowing how to use them, or by trying inferior 
poison. If the arrows are not kept dry, the poison 
loses its strength, and in wet or damp weather it turns 
mouldy, and becomes quite soft. In shooting an arrow 
in this state, upon examining the place where it has 
entered, it will be observed that, though the arrow has 
penetrated deep into the ilesh, still by far the greatest 
part of the poison has shrunk back, and thus, instead 
of entering with the arrow, it has remained collected at 
the mouth of the wound. In this case the arrow might 
as well have not been poisoned. Probably, it was to 
this that a gentleman, some time ago, owed his disap- 
pointment, w T hen he tried the poison on a horse in the 
town of Stabroek, the capital of Demerara ; the horse 
never betrayed the least symptom of being affected by it. 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



45 



Wishful to obtain the best information concerning 
this poison, and as repeated inquiries, in lieu of dissi- 
pating the surrounding shade, did but tend more and 
more to darken the little light that existed ; I deter- 
mined to penetrate into the country where the poisonous 
ingredients grow, where this pernicious composition is 
prepared, and where it is constantly used. Success 
attended the adventure ; and the information acquired 
made amends for one hundred and twenty days passed 
in the solitudes of Guiana, and afforded a balm to the 
wounds and bruises which every traveller must expect 
to receive who wanders through a thorny and obstructed 
path. 

Thou must not, courteous reader, expect a disserta- 
tion on the manner in which the wourali poison ope- 
rates on the system ; a treatise has been already written 
on the subject, and, after all, there is probably still 
reason to doubt. It is supposed to affect the nervous 
system, and thus destroy the vital functions ; it is also 
said to be perfectly harmless, provided it does not 
touch the blood. However, this is certain, when a suf- 
ficient quantity of it enters the blood, death is the 
inevitable consequence ; but there is no alteration in 
the colour of the blood, and both the blood and flesh 
may be eaten with safety. 

All that thou wilt find here is a concise, unadorned 
account of the wourali poison. It may be of service to 
thee some time or other, shouldst thou ever travel 
through the wilds where it is used. Neither attribute 
to cruelty, nor to a want of feeling for the sufferings 
of the inferior animals, the ensuing experiments. The 
larger animals were destroyed in order to have proof 
positive of the strength of a poison which hath hitherto 



46 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



been doubted ; and the smaller ones were killed with, 
the hope of substantiating that which has commonly 
been supposed to be an antidote. 

It makes a pitying heart ache to see a poor creature 
in distress and pain ; and too often has the compas- 
sionate traveller occasion to heave a sigh as he journeys 
on. However, here, though the kind-hearted will be 
sorry to read of an unoffending animal doomed to death, 
in order to satisfy a doubt, still it will be a relief to 
know that the victim was not tortured. The wourali 
poison destroys life's action so gently, that the victim 
appears to be in no pain whatever ; and probably, were 
the truth known, it feels none, saving the momentary 
smart at the time the arrow enters. 

A day or two before the Macoushi Indian prepares 
his poison, he goes into the forest, in quest of the in- 
gredients. A vine grows in these wilds, which is called 
wourali. It is from this that the poison takes its name, 
and it is the principal ingredient. When he has pro- 
cured enough of this, he digs up a root of a very bitter 
taste, ties them together, and then looks for about two 
kinds of bulbous plants, which contain a green and 
glutinous juice. He fills a little quake, which he 
carries on his back, with the stalks of these; and 
lastly, ranges up and down till he finds two species of 
ants. One of them is very large and black, and so 
venomous, that its sting produces a fever ; it is most 
commonly to be met with on the ground. The other 
is a little red ant, which stings like a nettle, and gene- 
rally has its nest under the leaf of a shrub. After 
obtaining these, he has no more need to range the 
forest. 

A quantity of the strongest Indian pepper is used ; 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



47 



but this lie has already planted round his hut. The 
pounded fangs of the Labarri snake, and those of the 
Counacouchi, are likewise added. These he commonly 
has in store ; for when he kills a snake, he generally 
extracts the fangs, and keeps them by him. 

Having thus found the necessary ingredients, he 
scrapes the wourali vine and bitter root into 

Preparation . . -i • i p 

of the wourali thin shavings, and puts them into a kind of 
colander made of leaves : this he holds over 
an earthen pot, and pours water on the shavings : the 
liquor which comes through has the appearance of 
coffee. When a sufficient quantity has been procured, 
the shavings are thrown aside. He then bruises the 
bulbous stalks, and squeezes a proportionate quantity 
of their juice through his hands into the pot. Lastly, 
the snake's fangs, ants, and pepper are bruised, and 
thrown into it. It is then placed on a slow fire, and as 
it boils, more of the juice of the wourali is added, ac- 
cording as it may be found necessary, and the scum is 
taken off with a leaf : it remains on the fire till reduced 
to a thick syrup of a deep brown colour. As soon as it 
has arrived at this state a few arrows are poisoned with 
it, to try its strength. If it answer the expectations, it 
is poured out into a calabash, or little pot of Indian 
manufacture, which is carefully covered with a couple 
of leaves, and over them a piece of deer's skin, tied 
round with a cord. They keep it in the most dry part 
of the hut ; and from time to time suspend it over the 
fire, to counteract the effects of dampness. 

The act of preparing this poison is not considered as 
a common one : the savage may shape his bow, fasten 
the barb on the point of his arrow, and make his other 
implements of destruction, either lying in his hammock, 



48 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



or in the midst of his family ; out, if he has to prepare 
the wonrali poison, many precautions are supposed to 
be necessary. 

The women and young girls are not allowed to be 
present, lest the Yabahou, or evil spirit, 
Yabahou, or should do them harm. The shed under 

evil spirit. 

which it has been boiled, is pronounced 
polluted, and abandoned ever after. He who makes 
the poison must eat nothing that morning, and must 
continue fasting as long as the operation lasts. The 
pot in which it is boiled must be a new one, and must 
never have held anything before, otherwise the poison 
would be deficient in strength : add to this, that the 
operator must take particular care not to expose him- 
self to the vapour which arises from it while on the 
fire. 

Though this and other precautions are taken, such as 
frequently washing the face and hands, still the Indians 
think that it affects the health ; and the operator either 
is, or, what is more probable, supposes himself to be, 
sick for some days after. 

Indian su- Thus it appears that the making the 
perstition. wourali poison is considered as a gloomy 
and mysterious operation ; and it would seem that they 
imagine it affects others as well as him who boils it ; 
for an Indian agreed one evening to make some for me, 
but the next morning he declined having anything to 
do with it, alleging that his wife was with child ! 

Here it might be asked, are all the ingredients just 
mentioned necessary, in order to produce the wourali 
poison ? Though our opinions and conjectures may 
militate against the absolute necessity of some of them, 
still it would be hardly fair to pronounce them added 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



49 



by the hand of superstition, till proof positive can be 
obtained. ' 

We might argue on the subject, and by bringing 
forward instances of Indian superstition, draw our 
conclusion by inference, and still remain in doubt on 
this head. You know superstition to be the offspring 
of ignorance, and of course that it takes up its abode 
amongst the rudest tribes of uncivilized man. It even 
too often resides with man in his more enlightened 
state. 

The Augustan age furnishes numerous examples. A 
bone snatched from the jaws of a fasting bitch, and a 
feather from the wing of a night owl — " ossa ab ore 
rapta jejunse canis, plumamque nocturnae strigis," — were 
necessary for Canidia's incantations. And in aftertimes, 
parson Evans, the Welshman, was treated most ungen- 
teelly by an enraged spirit, solely because he had for- 
gotten a fumigation in his witch-work. 

If, then, enlightened man lets his better sense give 
way, and believes, or allows himself to be persuaded, 
that certain substances and actions, in reality of no 
avail, possess a virtue which renders them useful in 
producing the wished- for effect ; may not the wild, un- 
taught, unenlightened savage of Guiana, add an ingre- 
dient which, on account of the harm it does him, he 
fancies may be useful to the perfection of his poison, 
though, in fact, it be of no use at all % If a bone 
snatched from the jaws of a fasting bitch be thought 
necessary in incantation ; or if witchcraft have recourse 
to the raiment of the owl, because it resorts to the 
tombs and mausoleums of the dead, and wails and 
hovers about at the time that the rest of animated 
nature sleeps ; certainly the savage may imagine that 

E 



50 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



the ants, whose sting causes a fever, and the teeth of 
the Labarri and Counacouchi snakes, which convey 
death in a very short space of time, are essentially 
necessary in the composition of his poison ; and being 
once impressed with this idea, he will add them every 
time he makes the poison, and transmit the absolute use 
of them to his posterity. The question to be answered 
seems not to be, if it is natural for the Indians to 
mix these ingredients, but, if they are essential to 
make the poison. 

So much for the preparing of this vegetable essence ; 
terrible importer of death, into whatever animal it 
enters. Let us now see how it is used ; let us examine 
the weapons which bear it to its destination, and take 
a view of the poor victim, from the time he receives 
his wound, till death comes to his relief. 

When a native of Macoushia goes in quest 
of D tiie n bio^ of feathered game or other birds, he seldom 
carries his bow and arrows. It is the blow- 
pipe he then uses. This extraordinary tube of death 
is, perhaps, one of the greatest natural curiosities of 
Guiana. It is not found in the country of the Macoushi. 
Those Indians tell you that it grows to the south-west 
of them, in the wilds which extend betwixt them and 
the Eio Negro. The reed must grow to an amazing 
length, as the part the Indians use is from ten t to eleven 
feet long, and no tapering can be perceived in it, one 
end being as thick as the other. It is of a bright yellow 
colour, perfectly smooth both inside and out. It grows 
hollow ; nor is there the least appearance of a knot or 
joint throughout the whole extent. The natives call it 
Ourah. This, of itself, is too slender to answer the end 
of a blow-pipe ; but there is a species of palma, larger 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



51 



and stronger, and common in Guiana, and this the 
Indians make use of as a case, in which they put the 
ourah. It is brown, susceptible of a fine polish, and 
appears as if it had joints five or six inches from each 
other. It is called Samourah, and the pulp inside 
is easily extracted, by steeping it for a few days in 
water. 

Thus the ourah and samourah, one within the other, 
form the blow-pipe of Guiana. The end which is ap- 
plied to the mouth is tied round with a small silk-grass 
cord, to prevent its splitting ; and the other end, which 
is apt to strike against the ground, is secured by the 
seed of the acuero fruit, cut horizontally through the 
middle, with a hole made in the end, through which is 
put the extremity of the blow-pipe. It is fastened on 
with string on the outside, and the inside is filled up 
with w ild bees' -wax. 

The arrow is from nine to ten inches long. 
It is made out of the leaf of a species of 
palm-tree, called Coucourite, hard and brittle, and 
pointed as sharp as a needle. About an inch of the 
pointed end is poisoned. The other end is burnt to 
make it still harder, and wild cotton is put round it for 
about an inch and a half. It requires considerable 
practice to put on this cotton well. It must just be 
large enough to fit the hollow of the tube, and taper 
off to nothing downwards. They tie it on with a 
thread of the silk-grass, to prevent its slipping off 
the arrow. 

The Indians have shown ingenuity in 
ie quiver. ma k- n g a q U i ver ^ arrows. It will 

contain from five to six hundred. It is generally from 
twelve to fourteen inches long, and in shape resembles 

e 2 



52 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



a dice-"box used at backgammon. The inside is prettily 
done in basket work, with wood not unlike bamboo, 
and the outside has a coat of wax. The cover is all 
of one piece, formed out of the skin of the tapir. 
Bound the centre there is fastened a loop, large 
enough to admit the arm and shoulder, from which it 
hangs when used. To the rim is tied a little bunch 
of silk-grass, and half of the jaw-bone of the fish called 
pirai, with which the Indian scrapes the point of his 
arrow. 

Before he puts the arrows into the quiver, he links 
them together by two strings of cotton, one string at 
each end, and then folds them round a stick, which is 
nearly the length of the quiver. The end of the stick, 
which is uppermost, is guarded by two little pieces 
of wood crosswise, with a hoop round their extre- 
mities, which appears something like a wheel; and 
this saves the hand from being wounded when the 
quiver is reversed, in order to let the bunch of arrows 
drop out. 

There is also attached to the quiver a little kind of 
basket, to hold the wild cotton which is put on the 
blunt end of the arrow. With a quiver of poisoned 
arrows slung over his shoulder, and with his blow-pipe 
in his hand, in the same position as a soldier carries his 
musket, see the Macoushi Indian advancing towards 
the forest in quest of powises, maroudis, waracabas, 
and other feathered game. 

These generally sit high up in the tall and tufted 
trees, but still are not out of the Indian's 

The Indian n . . . 

in pursuit of reach ; ior his blow-pipe, at its greatest- 
elevation, will send an arrow three hundred 
feet. Silent as midnight he steals under theim and so 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



53 



cautiously does he tread the ground that the fallen leaves 
rustle not beneath his feet. His ears are open to the 
least sound, while his eye, keen as that of the lynx, is 
employed in finding out the game in the thickest shade. 
Often he imitates their cry, and decoys them from tree 
to tree, till they are within range of his tube. Then 
taking a poisoned arrow from his quiver, he puts it 
in the blow-pipe, and collects his breath for the fatal 
puff. 

About two feet from the end through which he 
blows, there are fastened two teeth of the acouri, and 
these serve him for a sight. Silent and swift the 
arrow flies, and seldom fails to pierce the object at 
which it is sent. Sometimes the wounded bird remains 
in the same tree where it was shot, and in three 
minutes falls down at the Indian's feet. Should he 
take wing, his flight is of short duration, and the 
Indian, following the direction he has gone, is sure to 
find him dead. 

It is natural to imagine that, when a slight wound 
only is inflicted, the game will make its escape. Far 

Effects of otherwise ; the wourali poison almost in- 
the P womSied stantaneously mixes with blood or water, 
blrd * so that if you wet your finger, and dash it 

along the poisoned arrow in the quickest manner pos- 
sible, you are sure to carry off some of the poison. 
Though three minutes generally elapse before the con- 
vulsions come on in the wounded bird, still a stupor 
evidently takes place sooner, and this stupor manifests 
itself by an apparent unwillingness in the bird to move. 
This was very visible in a dying fowl. 

Having procured a healthy full-grown one, a short 
piece of a poisoned blow-pipe arrow was broken off and 



54 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



run Tip into its thigh, as near as possible betwixt the 
skin and the flesh, in order that it might not be in- 
commoded by the wound. For the first minute it 
walked about, but walked very slowly, and did not 
appear the least agitated. EHiring the second minute it 
stood still, and began to peck the ground ; and ere half 
another had elapsed, it frequently opened and shut its 
mouth. The tail had now dropped, and the wings 
almost touched the ground. By the termination of 
the third minute it had sat down, scarce able to support 
its head, which nodded, and then recovered itself, and 
then nodded again, lower and lower every time, like 
that of a weary traveller slumbering in an erect posi- 
tion ; the eyes alternately open and shut. The fourth 
minute brought on convulsions, and life and the fifth 
terminated together. 

The flesh of the game is not in the least injured by 
the poison, nor does it appear to corrupt sooner than 
that killed by the gun or knife. The body of this fowl 
was kept for sixteen hours,, in a climate damp and rainy, 
and within seven degrees of the equator ; at the end of 
which time it had contracted no bad smell whatever,, 
and there were no symptoms of putrefaction, saving 
that, just round the wound, the flesh appeared some- 
what discoloured. 

The Indian, on his return home, carefully suspends 
his blow-pipe from the top of his spiral roof ; seldom 
placing it in an oblique position, lest it should receive a 
east. 

Here let the blow-pipe remain suspended, while you 
take a view of the arms which are made to slay the 
larger beasts of the forest. 

When the Indian intends to chase the peccari, or 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



55 



surprise the deer, or rouse the tapir from his marshy 
retreat, he carries his bow and arrows, which are very 
different from the weapons already described. 

The bow is generally from six to seven feet long, 

The bow an( ^ S ^ run g W ^ n a COr ^ s P un of the 

used for the silk-grass. The forests of Guiana furnish 

chase. 

many species of hard wood, tough and 
elastic, out of which beautiful and excellent bows are 
formed. 

The arrows are from four to five feet in 
Arrows. length, made of a yellow reed without a 
knot or joint. It is found in great plenty up and 
down throughout Guiana. A piece of hard wood, 
about nine inches long, is inserted into the end of the 
reed, and fastened with cotton well waxed. A square 
hole, an inch deep, is then made in the end of this 
piece of hard wood, done tight round with cotton to 
keep it from splitting. Into this square hole is fitted 
a spike of Coucourite wood, poisoned, and which may 
be kept there or taken out at pleasure. A joint of 
bamboo, about as thick as your finger, is fitted on 
over the poisoned spike, to prevent accidents and 
defend it from the rain, and is taken off when the 
arrow is about to be used. Lastly, two feathers are 
fastened on the other end of the reed, to steady it in 
its flight. 

Besides his bow and arrows, the Indian carries a 
little box, made of bamboo, which holds a dozen or 
fifteen poisoned spikes, six inches long. They are 
poisoned in the following manner : — A small 

Smkes. . . _ 

piece of wood is dipped m the poison, and 
with this they give the spike a first coat. It is then 
-exposed to the sun or fire. After it is dry, it receives 



56 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



ar other coat, and is then dried again ; after this a third 
coat, and sometimes a fourth. 

They take great care to put the poison on thicker 
at the middle than at the sides, by which means the 
spike retains the shape of a two-edged sword. It- 
is rather a tedious operation to make one of these 
arrows complete ; and as the Indian is not famed for 
industry, except when pressed by hunger, he has hit 
upon a plan of preserving his arrows which deserves 
notice. 

About a quarter of an inch above the part where the 
Coucourite spike is fixed into the square hole, he cuts 
it half through ; and thus, when it has entered the 
animal, the weight of the arrow causes it to break off 
there, by which means the arrow falls to the ground 
uninjured ; so that, should this be the only arrow he 
happens to have with him, and should another shot 
immediately occur, he has only to take another poisoned 
spike out of his little bamboo box, fit it on his arrow, 
and send it to its destination. 

Thus armed with deadly poison, and hungry as the 
hysena, he ranges through the forest in quest of the 
wild beasts' track. No hound can act a surer part. 
Without clothes to fetter him, or shoes to bind his feet, 
he observes the footsteps of the game, where an Euro- 
pean eye could not discern the smallest vestige. He 
pursues it through all its turns and windings with 
astonishing perseverance, and success generally crowns 
his efforts. The animal, after receiving the poisoned 
arrow, seldom retreats two hundred paces before it 
drops. 

In passing overland from the Essequibo to the 
Demerara, we fell in with a herd of wild hogs. Though 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



57 



encumbered with baggage, and fatigued with a hard 
day's walk, an Indian got his bow ready, and let 

fly a poisoned arrow at oue of them. It 
ho? m a Wild entere(i tne cheek-bone, and broke off. The 

wild hog was found quite dead about one 
hundred and seventy paces from the place where he had 
been shot. He afforded us an excellent and wholesome 
supper. 

Thus the savage of Guiana, independent of the com- 
mon weapons of destruction, has it in his power to 
prepare a poison, by which he can generally ensure to 
himself a supply of animal food ; and the food so de- 
stroyed imbibes no deleterious qualities. Nature has 
been bountiful to him. She has not only ordered 
poisonous herbs and roots to grow in the unbounded 
forests through which he strays, but has also furnished 
an excellent reed for his arrows, and another, still more 
singular, for his blow-pipe ; and planted trees of an 
amazing hard, tough, and elastic texture, out of which 
he forms his bows. And in order that nothing might 
be w T anting, she has superadded a tree which yields him 
a fine wax, and disseminated up and down a plant not 
unlike that of the pine-apple, which affords him capital 
bow-strings. 

Having now followed the Indian in the chase, and 
described the poison, let us take a nearer view of its 
action, and observe a large animal expiring under the 
weight of its baneful virulence. 

Many have doubted the strength of the wourali 
poison. Should they ever by chance read what follows, 
probably their doubts on that score will be settled 
for ever. 

In the former experiment on the hog, some faint 



58 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



resistance on the part of nature was observed, as if 
Further re- existence struggled for superiority; but in the 

marks on the n -,, . , n ±i i ji tp i_ • 

virulence of following instance ot the sloth, iiie sank m 
the poison. ( j ea| ^ without the least apparent contention, 
without a cry, without a struggle, and without a groan. 
This was an Ai, or three-toed sloth. It was in the 
possession of a gentleman who was collecting curiosities. 
He wished to have it killed, in order to preserve the 
skin, and the wourali poison was resorted to as the 
easiest death. 

Of all animals, not even the toad and tortoise ex- 
cepted, this poor ill- formed creature is the most tena- 
cious of life. It exists long after it has received 
wounds which would have destroyed any other animal ; 
and it may be said, on seeing a mortally wounded 
sloth, that life disputes with death every inch of flesh 
in its body. 

The Ai w T as wounded in the leg, and put down on 
the floor, about two feet from the table ; it contrived 
to reach the leg of the table, and fastened itself on it, 
as if wishful to ascend. But this was its last advancing 
step : life was ebbing fast, though imperceptibly ; nor 
could this singular production of nature, which has 
been formed of a texture to resist death in a thousand 
shapes, make any stand against the wourali poison. 

First, one fore-leg let go its hold, and dropped down 
motionless by its side ; the other gradually did the 
same. The fore-legs having now lost strength, the sloth 
slowly doubled its body, and placed its head betwixt 
its hind legs, which still adhered to the table ; but 
when the poison had affected these also, it sank to the 
ground, but sank so gently, that you could not distin- 
guish the movement from an ordinary motion ; and had 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



59 



you been ignorant that it was wounded with a poisoned 
arrow, you would never have suspected that it was 
dying. Its mouth was shut, nor had any froth or 
saliva collected there. 

There was no >subsultus tendinum, or any visible 
alteration in its breathing. During the tenth minute 
from the time it was wounded it stirred, and that was 
all ; and the minute after, life's last spark went out. 
From the time the poison began to operate, you would 
have conjectured that sleep was overpowering it, and 
you would have exclaimed, " Pressitque jacentem, dulcis 
et alta quies, placidasque simillima niorti." 

There are now two positive proofs of the effect of 
this fatal poison : viz. the death of the hog, and that 
of the sloth. But still these animals were nothing 
remarkable for size ; and the strength of the poison in 
large animals might yet be doubted, were it not for 
what follows. 

A large well-fed ox, from nine hundred 
up^anox 11 * ^° a thousand pounds' weight, was tied to 
a stake by a rope sufficiently long to allow 
him to move to and fro. Having no large Coucourite 
spikes at hand, it was judged necessary, on account of 
his superior size, to put three wild-hog arrows into him. 
One was sent into each thigh just above the hock, in 
order to avoid wounding a vital part, and the third was 
shot transversely into the extremity of the nostril. 

The poison seemed to take effect in four minutes. 
Conscious as though he would fall, the ox set himself 
firmly on his legs, and remained quite still in the same 
place, till about the fourteenth minute, when he smelled 
the ground, and appeared as if inclined to walk. He 
advanced a pace or two, staggered, and fell, and re- * 



60 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



mained extended on his side, with his head on the 
ground. His eye, a few minutes ago so bright and 
lively, now became fixed and dim ; and though you put 
your hand close to it, as if to give him a blow there, he 
never closed his eyelid. 

His legs were convulsed, and his head from time to 
time started involuntarily ; but he never showed the 
least desire to raise it from the ground ; he breathed 
hard, and emitted foam from his mouth. The startings, 
or subsultus tendinum, now became gradually weaker 
and w r eaker ; his hinder parts were fixed in death ; and 
in a minute or two more his head and fore-legs ceased 
to stir. 

Nothing now remained to show that life was still 
within him, except that his heart faintly beat and 
fluttered at intervals. In five-and-twenty minutes from 
the time of his being wounded, he was quite dead. His 
flesh was very sweet and savoury at dinner. 

On taking a retrospective view of the two 
senStions° b " different kinds of poisoned arrows, and the 
animals destroyed by them, it would appear 
that the quantity of poison must be proportioned to the 
animal ; and thus those probably labour under an error 
who imagine that the smallest particle of it introduced 
into the blood has almost instantaneous effects. 

Make an estimate of the difference in size betwixt 
the fowl and the ox, and then weigh a sufficient 
quantity of poison for a blow-pipe arrow, with which 
the fowl was killed, and weigh also enough poison for 
three wild-hog arrows, which destroyed the ox, and it 
will appear that the fowl received much more poison in 
proportion than the ox. Hence the cause w T hy the fowl 
died in five minutes, and the ox in five-and-twenty. 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



61 



Indeed, were it the case that the smallest particle of 
it introduced into the blood has almost instantaneous 
effects, the Indian would not find it necessary to make 
the large arrow ; that of the blow-pipe is much easier 
made, and requires less poison. 

And now for the antidotes, or rather the supposed 
antidotes. The Indians tell you, that if the 

Antidotes. . 

wounded animal be held for a considerable 
time up to the mouth in water, the poison will not 
prove fatal ; also that the juice of the sugar-cane, 
poured down the throat, will counteract the effects of 
it. These antidotes were fairly tried upon full-grown 
healthy fowls, but they all died, as though no steps 
had been taken to preserve their lives. Eum was 
recommended, and given to another, but with as little 
success. 

It is supposed by some, that wind introduced into 
the lungs by means of a small pair of bellows, would 
revive the poisoned patient, provided the operation be 
continued for a sufficient length of time. It may be 
so : but this is a difficult and a tedious mode of cure, 
and he who is wounded in the forest, far away from his 
friends, or in the hut of the savages, stands but a poor 
chance of being saved by it. 

Had the Indians a sure antidote, it is likely they 
would carry it about with them, or resort to it 
immediately after being wounded, if at hand ; and 
their confidence in its efficacy would greatly diminish 
the horror they betray when you point a poisoned 
arrow at them. 

One day while we were eating a red monkey, 
erroneously called a baboon, in Demerara, an Arowack 
Indian told an affecting story of what happened to a 



62 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



comrade of his. He was present at his death. As it 
did not interest this Indian in any point to tell a false- 
hood, it is very probable that his account was a true one. 
If so, it appears that there is no certain antidote, or, at 
least, an antidote that could be resorted to in a case of 
urgent need ; for the Indian gave up all thoughts of 
life as soon as he was wounded. 

The Arowack Indian said it was but four 
years ago, that he and his companion were 
ranging in the forest in quest of game. His companion 
took a poisoned arrow, and sent it at a red monkey in 
a tree above him. It was nearly a perpendicular shot. 
The arrow missed the monkey, and, in the descent, 
struck him in the arm, a little above the elbow. He 
was convinced it was all over with him. " I shall 
never/' said he to his companion, in a faltering voice, 
and looking at his bow as he said it, "I shall never," 
said he, " bend this bow again." And having said 
that, he took off his little bamboo poison box, which 
hung across his shoulder, and putting it together with 
his bow and arrows on the ground, he laid himself down 
close by them, bid his companion farewell, and never 
spoke more. 

He who is unfortunate enough to be wounded by a 
poisoned arrow from Macoushia, had better not depend 
upon the common antidotes for a cure. Many who 
have been in Guiana will recommend immediate immer- 
sion in water, or to take the juice of the sugar-cane, or 
to fill the mouth full of salt ; and they recommend these 
antidotes, because they have got them from the Indians. 
But were you to ask them if they ever saw these an- 
tidotes used with success, it is ten to one their answer 
would be in the negative. 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



63 



Wherefore let him reject these antidotes as unprofit- 
able, and of no avail. He has got an active and a 
deadly foe within him, which, like Shakspeare's 
fell Sergeant Death, is strict in his arrest, and will 
allow him but little time — very — very little time. In 
a few minutes he will be numbered with the dead. 
Life ought, if possible, to be preserved, be the expense 
ever so great. Should the part affected admit of it, let 
a ligature be tied tight round the wound, and have 
immediate recourse to the knife : 

" Continuo, culpam ferro compesce priusquam, 
Dira per infaustum serpant contagia corpus." 

And now, kind reader, it is time to bid thee farewell. 
The two ends proposed have been obtained. The Por- 
tuguese inland frontier fort has been reached, and the 
Macoushi wourali poison acquired. The account of this 
excursion through the interior of Guiana has been sub- 
mitted to thy perusal, in order to induce thy abler 
genius to undertake a more extensive one. If any diffi- 
culties have arisen, or fevers come on, they have been 
caused by the periodical rains, which fall in torrents, 
as the sun approaches the tropic of Cancer. In dry 
weather there would be no difficulties or sickness. 

Amongst the many satisfactory conclusions which 
thou wouldst be able to draw during the journey, 
there is one which, perhaps, would please thee not a 
little ; and that is, w T ith regard to dogs. Many a time, 
no doubt, thou hast heard it hotly disputed, that dogs 
existed in Guiana previous to the arrival of the Spaniards 
in those parts. "Whatever the Spaniards introduced, 
and which bore no resemblance to anything the Indians 
had been accustomed to see, retains its Spanish name 
to this day. 



64 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



Thus the Warrow, the Arowack, the Acoway, the 
Macoushi, and Carib tribes, call a hat, sombrero ; a 
shirt, or any kind of cloth, camisa ; a shoe, zapato ; 
a letter, carta ; a fowl, gallina ; gunpoAvder, colvora 
(Spanish, polvora) ; ammunition, bala ; a cow, vaca; 
and a dog, perro. 

This argues strongly against the existence of dogs in 
Guiana, before it was discovered by the Spaniards, and 
probably may be of use to thee, in thy next canine 
dispute. 

In a political point of view, this country 
presents a large field for speculation. A few 
years ago, there was but little inducement for any 
Englishman to explore the interior of these rich and 
fine colonies, as the British Government did not con- 
sider them worth holding at the peace of Amiens. 
Since that period their mother country has been blotted 
out from the list of nations, and America has unfolded 
a new sheet of politics. On one side, the crown of 
Braganza, attacked by an ambitious chieftain, has fled 
from the palace of its ancestors, and now seems fixed 
on the banks of the Janeiro. Cayenne has yielded to 
its arms. La Plata has raised the standard of indepen- 
dence, and thinks itself sufficiently strong to obtain 
a Government of its own. On the other side, the 
Caraccas are in open revolt ; and should Santa Fe 
join them in good earnest, they may form a powerful 
association. 

Thus, on each side of ci-devant Dutch Guiana, most 
unexpected and astonishing changes have taken place. 
Will they raise or lower it in the scale of estimation at 
the Court of St. James's ? AYill they be of benefit to 
these grand and extensive colonies ? Colonies enjoy- 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



65 



ing perpetual summer. Colonies of the richest soil. 
Colonies containing within themselves everything ne- 
cessary for their support. Colonies, in fine, so varied 
in their quality and situation, as to be capable of 
bringing to perfection every tropical production ; and 
only wanting the support of Government, and an en- 
lightened governor, to render them as fine as the finest 
portions of the equatorial regions. Kind reader, fare 
thee well. 



LETTER TO THE PORTUGUESE COMMANDER. 
Muy Senor, 

Como no tengo el honor, de ser conocido de VM. lo pienso 
major, y mas decoroso, quedarme aqui, hastaque huviere recibido 
sn respuesta. Haviendo caminado hasta la chozo, adonde estoi, 
no quisiere volverme, antes de haver visto la fortaleza de los 
Portugueses ; y pido licencia de YM. para que me adelante. 
Honradissimos son mis motivos, ni tengo proyecto ninguno, o 
de comercio, o de la soldadesca, no siendo yo, o comerciante, o 
oficial. Hidalgo catolico soy, de hacienda in Ynglatierra, y 
muchos anos de mi vida he pasado en caminar. Ultimamente, 
de Demeraria vengo, la qual dexe el 5 dia de Abril, para ver 
este hermoso pais, y coger unas curiosidades, especialmente, el 
veneno, que se llama wourali. Las mas recentes noticias que 
tenian en Demeraria, antes de mi salida, eran medias tristes, 
medias alegres. Tristes digo, viendo que Valencia ha caido en 
poder del enemigo comun, y el General Blake, y sus valientes 
tropas quedan prisioneros de guerra. Alegres, al contrario, 
porque Milord Wellington se ha apoderado de Ciudad Rodrigo. 
A pesar de la caida de Valencia, parece claro al mundo, que las 
cosas del enemigo, estan andando, de pejor a pejor cada dia. 
Nosotros clebemos dar gracias al Altissimo, por haver sido ser- 
vido dexarnos castigar ultimamente, a los robadores de sus 
santas Yglesias. Se vera VM. que yo no escribo Portugues ni 
aun lo hablo, pero, haviendo aprendido el Castellano, no nos 
faltara medio de communicar y tener conversacion. Ruego se 

F 



66 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



escuse esta carta escrita sin tinta, porque un Indio dexo caer mi 
tintero y quebrose. Dios le de a VM. muchos anos de salud. 
Entretanto, tengo el honor de ser 

Su mas obedeeiente servidor, 

Carlos Watertox, 



EEMAEK Sc 

"Incertus, quo. fata ferant, ubi sistere detur." 

Kind and gentle reader, if the journey in quest of 
the wourali poison has engaged thy attention, probably 
thou mayest recollect that the traveller took leave of 
thee at Fort St. Joachim, on the Eio Branco. Shouldst 
L thou wish to know what befell hirn after- 

Illness at 

Fort st. Jo- wards, excuse the following uninteresting 

achini. ' ° ° 

narrative. 

Having had a return of fever, and aware that the 
further he advanced into these wild and lonely regions, 
the less would be the chance of regaining his health ; 

Returns to ne g ave up ai l idea of proceeding onwards, 
Demerara. and went s i ow i y towards the Deme- 

rara, nearly by the same route he had come. 

Fails of the On descending the falls in the Essequibo, 
Esseqmbo. w hich form an oblique line quite across the 
river, it was- resolved to push through them, the down- 
ward stream being in the canoe's favour. At a little 
distance from the place, a large tree had fallen into the 
river, and in the meantime the canoe was lashed to one 
of its branches. 

The roaring of the water was dreadful; it foamed 
and dashed, over the rocks with a tremendous spray, 
like breakers on a lee shore, threatening destruction to 
whatever approached it. You would have thought, by 
the confusion it caused in the river, and the whirlpools 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



67 



it made, that Scylla and Charybdis, and their whole pro- 
geny, had left the Mediterranean, and come and settled 
here. The channel was barely twelve feet wide, and 
the torrent in rushing down formed transverse furrows,, 
which showed how* near the rocks were to the surface. 

Nothing could surpass the skill of the Indian who 
steered the canoe. He looked stedfastly at it, then at 
the rocks, then cast an eye on the channel, and then 
looked at the canoe again. It was in vain to speak. 
The sound was lost in the roar of waters but his eye 
showed that he had already passed it in imagination. 
He held up his paddle in a position, as much as to 
say, that he would keep exactly amid channel; and 
then made a sign to cut the bush-rope that held the 
canoe to the fallen tree. The canoe drove down the 
torrent with inconceivable rapidity. It did not touch 
the rocks once all the way. The Indian proved to a 
nicety, " medio tutissimus ibis." 

Shortly after this it rained almost day and night, the 
Timnder and lightning flashing incessantly, and the roar 
lightning. Q £ thunder awful beyond expression. 

The fever returned, and pressed so heavy on him, 

Fever re- "that to all appearance his last day's march 
was over. However, it abated ; his spirits 
rallied, and he marched again ; and after delays and 
inconveniences he reached the house of his worthy 
Reaches Mi- friend Mr. Edmonstone, in Mibiri Creek, 
biri creek. w ki c h f a u s j nto the Demerara. No words 
of his can do justice to the hospitality of that gentleman, 
whose repeated encounters with the hostile negroes in 
the forest have been publicly rewarded, and will be 
remembered in the colony for years to come. 

Here he learned that an eruption had taken place in 
f 2 



68 



WANDERINGS IX SOUTH AMERICA. 



St. Vincent's ; and thus the noise heard in the night 
of the first of May, which had caused such terror 
amongst the Indians, and made the garrison at Fort 
St. Joachim remain under arms the rest of the night, is 
accounted for. 

Sails for After experiencing every kindness and 
Granada. attention from ]\Ir. Edmonstone, he sailed 
for Granada, and from thence to St. Thomas's, a few 
days before poor Captain Peake lost his life on his own 
quarter-deck, bravely fighting for his country on the 
coast of Guiana. 

st. Thomas's At St. Thomas's they show you a tower, 
ower ' a little distance from the town, which, they 
say formerly belonged to a bucanier chieftain. Probably 
the fury of besiegers has reduced it to its present dis- 
mantled state. What still remains of it bears testimony 
of its former strength, and may brave the attack of 
time for centuries. You cannot view its ruins without 
calling to mind the exploits of those fierce and hardy 
hunters, long the terror of the western world. While 
you admire their undaunted courage, you lament that 
it was often stained with cruelty ; while you extol their 
scrupulous justice to each other, you will find a want 
of it towards the rest of mankind. Often possessed of 
enormous wealth, often in extreme poverty, often trium- 
phant on the ocean, and often forced to fly to the 
forests ; their life was an ever-changing scene of ad- 
vance and retreat, of glory and disorder, of luxury and 
famine. Spain treated them as outlaws and pirates, 
while other European powers publicly disowned them. 
They, on the other hand, maintained that injustice 
on the part of Spain first forced them to take up 
arms in self-defence ; and that, whilst t they kept in- 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



69 



violable the laws which, they had framed for their own 
common benefit and protection, they had a right to 
consider as foes those who treated them as outlaws. 
Under this impression they drew the sword, and rushed 
on as though in lawful war, and divided the spoils of 
victory in the scale of justice. 

After leaving St. Thomas's, a severe ter- 
Thomal^ and tian a gue, every now and then, kept putting 
L'tertlan^e the traveller in mind that his shattered 
England 1118 10 ^ rame ? " starting and shivering in the incon- 
stant blast, meagre and pale, the ghost of 
what it was," wanted repairs. Three years elapsed 
after arriving in England, before the ague took its final 
leave of him. 

During that time several experiments were 

Exp en- ° A 

mentsinLon- made with the wourali poison. In London 

don of the 

wourali poi- an ass was inoculated with it, and died in 
twelve minutes. The poison was inserted 
into the leg of another, round which a bandage had 
been previously tied a little above the place where the 
wourali was introduced. He walked about as usual, 
and ate his food as though all were right. After an 
hour had elapsed, the bandage was untied, and ten 
minutes after, death overtook him. 

A she-ass received the wourali poison in the shoulder, 
and died apparently in ten minutes. An incision was 
then made in its windpipe, and through it the lungs 
were regularly inflated for two hours with a pair of 
bellows. Suspended animation returned. The ass held 
up her head, and looked around; but the inflating 
being discontinued, she sunk once more in apparent 
death. The artificial breathing was immediately recom- 
menced, and continued without intermission for two 



70 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



hours more. This saved the ass from final dissolution : 
she rose up and walked about j she seemed neither in 
agitation nor in pain. The wound through which the 
poison entered was healed without difficulty. Her con- 
stitution, however, was so severely affected, that it was 
long a doubt if ever she would be well again. She 
looked lean and sickly for above a year, but began to 
mend the spring after ; and by Midsummer became 
fat and frisky. 

The kind-hearted reader will rejoice on learning that 
Earl Percy, pitying her misfortunes, sent her down 
from London to Walton Hall, near Wakefield. There 
she goes by the name of Wouralia. Wouralia shall be 
sheltered from the wintry storm ; and when summer 
comes, she shall feed in the finest pasture. ~No burden 
shall be placed upon her, and she shall end her days in 
peace. * 

For three revolving autumns, the ague-beaten wan- 
derer never saw, without a sigh, the swallow bend her 
flight towards warmer regions. He wished to go too, 
but could not ; for sickness had enfeebled him, and 
prudence pointed out the folly of roving again, too 
soon, across the northern tropic. To be sure, the Con- 
tinent was now open, and change of air might prove 
beneficial ; but there was nothing very tempting in a 
trip across the Channel ; and as for a tour through 
England ! — England has long ceased to be the land for 
adventures. Indeed, when good King Arthur reappears 
to claim his crown, he will find things strangely altered 
here ; and may we not look for his coming % for there 
is written upon his grave -stone : — 

* Poor Wouralia breathed her last on the 15th of February, 1839, having 
survived the operation nearly five-and-twenty years. 



FIRST JOURNEY. 



71 



" Hie jacet Arturus, Rex quondam Rexque futurus." 

" Here Arthur lies, who formerly 
Was king— and king again to be." 

Don Quixote was always of opinion that this famous 
king did not die, but that he was changed into a raven 
by enchantment, and that the English are momentarily 
expecting his return. Ee this as it may, it is certain 
that when he reigned here, all was harmony and joy 
The browsing herds passed from vale to vale, the swains 
sang from the bluebell-teeming groves, and nymphs, 
with eglantine and roses in their neatly-braided hair, 
went hand in hand to the flowery mead, to weave gar- 
lands for their lambkins. If by chance some rude un- 
civil fellow dared to molest them, or attempted to throw 
thorns in their path, there was sure to be a knight- 
errant, not far off, ready to rush forward in their de- 
> fence. But, alas ! in these degenerate da}^s it is not so. 
Should a harmless cottage maid wander out of the 
highway to pluck a primrose or two in the neighbour- 
ing field, the haughty owner sternly bids her retire ; 
and if a pitying swain hasten to escort her back, he is 
perhaps seized by the gaunt house-dog ere he reach her ! 

iEneas's route on the other side of Styx could not 
have been much worse than this, though, by his account, 
when he got back to earth, it appears that he had fallen 
in with " Bellua Lernse, horrendum stridens, naruruis- 
que, armata Chimaera." 

Moreover, he had a sybil to guide his steps ; and as 
such a conductress, now-a-days, could not be got for 
love or money, it was judged most prudent to refrain 
from sauntering through this land of freedom, and wait 
with patience the return of health. At last this long- 
looked-for, ever-welcome stranger, came. 



72 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



SECOND JOURNEY. 



Sails for Per- In the year 1816, two days before the 
vernal equinox, I sailed from Liverpool for 
Pernambuco, in the southern hemisphere, on the coast 
of Brazil. There is little at this time of the year, in 
the European part of the Atlantic, to engage the atten- 
tion of the naturalist. As you go down the channel, 
you see a few divers and gannets. The middle-sized 
gulls, with a black spot at the end of the wings, attend 
you a little way into the Bay of Biscay. When it 
blows a hard gale of wind, the stormy petrel makes its 
appearance. While the sea runs mountains high, and 
every wave threatens destruction to the labouring vessel, 
this little harbinger of storms is seen enjoying itself, 
on rapid pinion, up and down the roaring billows. 
When the storm is over, it appears no more. It is 
known to every English sailor by the name of Mother 
Carey's chicken. It must have been hatched in iEolus's 
cave, amongst a clutch of squalls and tempests ; for 
whenever they get out upon the ocean, it always con- 
trives to be of the party. 

^ m ■> Though the calms, and storms, and adverse 
winds in these latitudes are vexatious, still, 
when you reach the trade winds you are amply repaid 
for all disappointments and inconveniences. The trade 
winds prevail about thirty degrees on each side of the 
equator. This part of the ocean may be called the 
Elysian Eields of Neptune's empire; and the torrid 
zone, notwithstanding Ovid's remark, "non est habita- 
bilis aestu," is rendered healthy and pleasant by these 



SECOND JOURNEY. 



73 



gently-blowing breezes. The ship glides smoothly on, 
and you soon find yourself within the northern tropic. 
When you are on it, Cancer is just over your head, and 
betwixt him and Capricorn is the high road to the zodiac, 
forty- seven degrees wide, famous for Phaeton's misad- 
venture. His father begged and entreated him not to 
take it into his head to drive parallel to the five zones, 
but to mind and keep on the turnpike which runs 
obliquely across the equator. " There you will dis- 
tinctly see," said he, "the ruts of my chariot wheels, 
6 manifesta rotae vestigia cernes.' " " But/' added he, 
" even suppose you keep on it, and avoid the by-roads, 
nevertheless, my dear boy, believe me, you will be most 
sadly put to your shifts ; ' ardua prima via est,' the 
first part of the road is confoundedly steep ! 6 ultima via 
prona est,' and after that it is all down hill ! More- 
over, 'per insidias iter est, formasque ferarum,' the 
road is full of nooses and bull-dogs, 1 H^emoniosque 
arcus,' and spring guns, 'ssevaque circuitu, curvan- 
tem brachia longo, Scorpio,' and steel traps of uncom- 
mon size and shape." These were nothing in the eyes 
of Phaeton : go he would ; so off he set, full speed, 
four-in-hand. He had a tough drive of it ; and after 
doing a prodigious deal of mischief, very luckily for 
the world, he got thrown out of the box, and tumbled 
into the river Po. 

Some of our modern bloods have been shallow enough 
to try to ape this poor empty-headed coachman, on a 
little scale, making London their zodiac. "Well for them 
if tradesmen's bills, and other trivial perplexities, have 
not caused them to be thrown into the King's Bench. 

The productions of the torrid zone are un- 

Torrid zone. x 

commonly grand. Its plains, its swamps, its 



74 



WANDERINGS IN SOCJTH AMERICA. 



savannas, and forests, abouncT with, the largest serpents 
and wild beasts ; and its trees are the habitation of the 
most beautiful of the feathered race. While the tra- 
veller in the old world is astonished at the elephant, 
the tiger, the lion, and the rhinoceros, he who wanders 
through the torrid regions of the new, is lost in admi- 
ration at the cotingas, the toucans, the humming-birds, 
and aras. 

The ocean, likewise, swarms with curiosi- 

Flying fish. 

ties. Probably the flying-fish may be con- 
sidered as one of the most singular. This little scaled 
inhabitant of water and air seems to have been more 
favoured than the rest of its finny brethren. It can 
rise out of the waves, and on wing visit the domain of 
the birds. After flying two or three hundred yards, the 
intense heat of the sun has dried its pellucid wings, 
and it is obliged to wet them, in order to continue its 
flight. It just drops into the ocean for a moment, and 
then rises again and flies on ; and then descends to re- 
moisten them, and then up again into the air : thus 
passing its life, sometimes wet, sometimes dry, sometimes 
in sunshine, and sometimes in the pale moon's nightly 
beam, as pleasure dictates, or as need requires. The 
additional assistance of wings is not thrown away upon 
it. It has full occupation both for fins and wings, as 
its life is in perpetual danger. 

The bonito and albicore chase it day and night ; but 
the dolphin is its worst and swiftest foe. If it escape 
into the air, the dolphin pushes on with proportional 
velocity beneath, and is ready to snap it up the moment 
it descends to wet its wings. 

You will often see above one hundred of these little 
marine aerial fugitives on the wing at once. They 



SECOND JOURNEY. 



75 



appear to use every exertion to prolong their flight, but 
vain are all their efforts; for when the last drop of 
water on their wings is dried up, their flight is at an 
end, and they must drop into the ocean. Some are 
instantly devoured . by their merciless pursuer, part 
escape by swimming, and others get out again as quick 
as possible, and trust once more to their wings. 

It often happens that this unfortunate little creature, 
after alternate dips and flights, finding all its exertions 
of no avail, at last drops on board the vessel, verifying 
the old remark, 

" Incidit in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim." 

There, stunned by the fall, it beats the deck with its 
tail and dies. When eating it, you would take it for a 
fresh herring. The largest measure from fourteen to 
fifteen inches in length. The dolphin, after pursuing 
it to the ship, sometimes forfeits his own life. 

In days of yore, the musician used to play in softest, 
sweetest strain, and then take an airing amongst the 
dolphins; " inter delphinas Arion." Eut now-a-days, 
our tars have quite capsized the custom ; and instead 
of riding ashore on the dolphin, they invite the dolphin 
aboard. While he is darting and playing around the 
vessel, a sailor goes out to the spritsailyard-arm, and 
with a long staff, leaded at one end, and armed at the 
other with five barbed spikes, he heaves it at him. If 
successful in his aim, there is a fresh mess for all hands. 
The dying dolphin affords a superh and brilliant sight: 

" Mille trahit moriens, adverso sole colores." 

All the colours of the rainbow pass and repass in rapid 
succession over his body, till the dark hand of death 
closes the scene. 



76 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



Prom the Cape de Yercl islands to the coast of 
Brazil, yon see several different kinds of gulls, which, 
probably, are bred in the island of St. Paul. Some- 
times the large bird called the Frigate Pelican, soars 
majestically over the vessel, and the tropic bird comes 
near enough to let you have a fair view of the long 
feathers in his tail. On the line, when it is calm, 
sharks of a tremendous size make their appearance. 
They are descried from the ship by means of the dorsal 
fin, which is above the water. 

On entering the bay of Pernambuco, the 
can lgate Peli " Frigate Pelican is seen watching the shoals 
of fish from a prodigious height. It seldom 
descends without a successful attack on its numerous 
prey below. 

As you approach the shore, the view is 

Scenery. ^ 7 

charming. The hills are clothed with wood, 
gradually rising towards the interior, none of them of 
any considerable height. A singular reef of rocks runs 
parallel to the coast, and forms the harbour of Pernam- 
buco. The vessels are moored betwixt it and the 
town, safe from every storm. You enter the harbour 
through a very narrow passage, close by a fort built on 
the reef. The hill of Olincla, studded with houses and 
convents, is on your right hand, and an island thickly 
planted with cocoa-nut trees adds considerably to the 
scene on your left. There are two strong forts on the 
isthmus, betwixt Olinda and Pernambuco, and a pillar 
midway to aid the pilot. 

Pernambuco probably contains upwards 

Pernambuco. 

of fifty thousand souls. It stands on a flat, 
and is divided into three parts ; a peninsula, an island, 
and the continent. Though within a few degrees of 



SECOND JOURNEY. 



77 



the line, its climate is remarkably salubrious, and ren- 
dered almost temperate by the refreshing sea-breeze. 
Had art and judgment contributed their portion to its 
natural advantages, Pernambuco, at this day, would 
have been a stately ornament to the coast of Brazil. 
On viewing it, it will strike you that every one has 
built his house entirely for himself, and deprived public 
convenience of the little claim she had a right to put in. 
You would wish that this city, so famous for its har- 
bour, so happy in its climate, and so well situated for 
commerce, could have risen under the flag of Dido, in 
lieu of that of Braganza. 

As you walk down the streets, the appearance of the 
houses is not much in their favour. Some 
houses^ and °^ them are very high, and some very low ; 

some newly whitewashed, and others stained, 
and mouldy, and neglected, as though they had no owner. 

The balconies, too, are of a dark and gloomy appear- 
ance. They are not, in general, open, as in most 
tropical cities, but grated like a farmer's dairy window, 
though somewhat closer. 

There is a lamentable want of cleanliness in the 
streets. The impurities from the houses, and the accu- 
mulation of litter from the beasts of burden, are un- 
pleasant sights to the passing stranger. He laments 
the want of a police as he goes along ; and when the 
wind begins to blow, his nose and eyes are too often 
exposed to a cloud of very unsavoury dust. 

When you view the port of Pernambuco, full of 
ships of all nations ; when you know that 
nambuco. Per " tne r i cnest commodities of Europe, Africa, 
and Asia are brought to it ; when you see 
immense quantities of cotton, dye-wood, and the choicest 



78 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



fruits pouring into the town, you are apt to wonder at 
the little attention these people pay to the common 
comforts which one always expects to find in a large 
and opulent city. However, if the inhabitants are 
satisfied, there is nothing more to be said. Should 
they ever be convinced that inconveniences exist, and 
that nuisances are too frequent, the remedy is in their 
own hands. At present, certainly, they seem perfectly 
regardless of them; and the Captain- General of Per- 
nambuco walks through the streets with as apparent 
content and composure, as an English statesman would 
proceed down Charing- cross. Custom reconciles every- 
thing. In a week or two the stranger himself begins 
to feel less the things which annoyed him so much 
upon his first arrival, and after a few months' residence, 
he thinks no more about them, while he is partaking 
of the hospitality, and enjoying the elegance and 
splendour within doors in this great city. 

Close by the river-side stands what is 

Palace of 

the Captain- called the palace of the Captain-General of 
Pernambuco. Its form and appearance alto- 
gether, strike the traveller that it was never intended 
for the use it is at present put to. 

Eeader, throw a veil over thy recollection for a little 
while, and forget the cruel, unjust, and unmerited cen- 
sures thou hast heard against an unoffending order. 
This palace was once the Jesuits' college, and originally 
built by those charitable fathers. Ask the aged and 
respectable inhabitants of Pernambuco, and they will 
tell thee that the destruction of the Society 

Destruction . . . 

of the Society of Jesus was a terrible disaster to the public, 

of Jesus. . 

and its consequences severely felt to the 
present day. 



SEdOND JOURNEY. 



79 



When Pombal took the reins of power into his own 
hands, virtue and learning beamed bright within the 
college walls. Public catechism to the children, and 
religious instruction to all, flowed daily from the mouths 
of its venerable priests. 

They were loved, revered, and respected throughout 
the whole town. The illuminating philosophers of the 
day had sworn to exterminate Christian knowledge, and 
the college of Pernambuco was doomed to founder in 
the general storm. To the long-lasting sorrow and dis- 
grace of Portugal, the philosophers blinded her king, 
and flattered her prime minister. Pombal was exactly 
the tool these sappers of every public and private virtue 
wanted. He had the naked sword of power in his own 
hand, and his heart was as hard as flint. He struck a 
mortal blow, and the Society of Jesus, throughout the 
Portuguese dominions, was no more. 

One morning all the fathers of the college in Per- 
nambuco, some of them very old and feeble, were sud- 
denly ordered into the refectory. They had notice 
beforehand of the fatal storm, in pity from the governor, 
but not one of them abandoned his charge. They had 
done their duty and had nothing to fear. They bowed 
with resignation to the will of Heaven. As soon as 
they had all reached the refectory, they were all locked 
up, and never more did they see their rooms, their 
friends, their scholars, or acquaintance. In the dead of 
the following night, a strong guard of soldiers literally 
drove them through the streets to the water's edge. 
They were then conveyed in boats aboard a ship, and 
steered for Bahia. Those who survived the barbarous 
treatment they experienced from Pombal's creatures, 
were at last ordered to Lisbon. The college of Per- 



80 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



nambuco was plundered, and some time after an ele- 
phant w r as kept there. 

Thus the arbitrary hand of power, in one night, 
smote and swept away the sciences : to which succeeded 
the low vulgar buffoonery of a show r man. Virgil and 
Cicero made way for a wild beast from Angola ! and 
now a guard is on duty at the very gate where, in times 
long past, the poor were daily fed ! ! ! 

Trust not, kind reader, to the envious remarks which 
their enemies have scattered far and near ; believe not 
the stories of those who have had a hand in the sad 
tragedy. Go to Brazil, and see with thine own eyes 
the effect of Pombal's short-sighted policyo There vice 
reigns triumphant, and learning is at its lowest ebb. 
Neither is this to be wondered at. Destroy the com- 
pass, and will the vessel find her far distant port ? 
Will the flock keep together, and escape the wolves, 
after the shepherds are all slain ? The Brazilians were 
told, that public education would go on just as usual. 
They might have asked Government, who so able to 
instruct our youth, as those whose knowledge is prover- 
bial ? who so fit, as those who enjoy our entire confidence? 
who so worthy, as those whose lives are irreproachable ? 

They soon found that those who succeeded the fathers 
of the Society of Jesus, had neither their manner nor 
their abilities. They had not made the instruction of 
youth their particular study. Moreover, they entered 
on the field after a defeat, where the officers had all 
been slain ; where the plan of the campaign was lost ; 
where all was in sorrow and dismay. No exertions of 
theirs could rally the dispersed, or skill prevent the 
fatal consequences. At the present day, the seminary 
of Olinda, in comparison with the former Jesuits' 



SECOND JOURNEY. 



81 



college, is only as the waning moon's beam to the sun's 
meridian splendour. 

When you visit the places where those learned fathers 
once flourished, and see, with your own eyes, the evils 
their dissolution has caused ; when you hear the inha- 
bitants telling you how good, how clever, how cha- 
ritable they were, — what will you think of our poet 
laureate, for calling them, in his "History of Brazil," 
" Missioners, whose zeal the most fanatical was directed 
by the coolest policy ] " 

Was it fanatical to renounce the honours and com- 
forts of this transitory life, in order to gain eternal 
glory in the next, by denying themselves, and taking 
up the cross ? Was it fanatical to preach salvation to 
innumerable wild hordes of Americans % to clothe the 
naked ? to encourage the repenting sinner 1 to aid the 
dying Christian ? The fathers of the Society of Jesus 
did all this. And for this their zeal is pronounced to 
be " the most fanatical, directed by the coolest policy." 
It will puzzle many a clear brain to comprehend how it 
is possible, in the nature of things, that zeal the most 
fanatical should be directed by the coolest policy. Ah, 
Mr. Laureate, Mr. Laureate, that "quidlibet audendi" 
of yours may now and then gild the poet, at the same 
time that it makes the historian cut a sorry figure ! 

Could Father Nobrega rise from the tomb, he would 
thus address you : — " Ungrateful Englishman, you have 
drawn a great part of your information from the writings 
of the Society of Jesus, and in return you attempt to 
stain its character by telling your countrymen that ' we 
taught the idolatry we believed ! ' In speaking of me, 
you say, it was my happy fortune to be stationed in a 
country where none but the good principles of my order 

G 



82 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



were called into action. Ungenerous laureate, the nar- 
row policy of the times has kept your countrymen in 
the dark with regard to the true character of the Society 
of Jesus ; and you draw the bandage still tighter over 
their eyes, by a malicious insinuation. I lived, and 
taught, and died in Brazil, where you state that none 
but the good principles of my order were called into 
action, and still, in most absolute contradiction to this, 
you remark we believed the idolatry we taught in Brazil. 
Thus we brought none but good principles into action, 
and still taught idolatry. 

" Again, you state there is no individual to whose 
talents Brazil is so greatly and permanently indebted as 
mine, and that I must be regarded as the founder of 
that system so successfully pursued by the Jesuits in 
Paraguay ; a system productive of as much good as is 
compatible with pious fraud. Thus you make me, at 
one and the same time, a teacher of none but good 
principles, and a teacher of idolatry, and a believer in 
idolatry, and still the founder of a system for which 
Brazil is greatly and permanently indebted to me, 
though, by the bye, the system was only productive of 
as much good as is compatible with pious fraud ! 

" What means all this 1 After reading such incom- 
parable nonsense, should^ your countrymen wish to be 
properly informed concerning the Society of Jesus, 
there are in England documents enough to show that I 
the system of the Jesuits was a system of Christian 
charity towards their fellow- creatures, administered in 
a manner which human prudence judged best calculated 
to ensure success ; and that the idolatry which you un- 
charitably affirm they taught, was really and truly the 
very same faith which the Catholic church taught for 



SECOND JOURNEY. 



83 



centuries in England, which, she still teaches to those 
who wish to hear her, and which she will continue to 
teach, pure and unspotted, till time shall be no more." 
The environs of Pernambuco are very pretty. You 
see country houses in all directions, and the 
Pe^nambuco° f a PP earance 0I> nere an d there a sugar plan- 
tation enriches the scenery. Palm-trees, 
cocoa-nut-trees, orange and lemon groves, and all the 
different fruits peculiar to Brazil, are here in the greatest 
abundance. 

At Olinda there is a national botanical garden ; it 
wants space, produce, and improvement. The forests, 
which are several leagues off, abound with birds, beasts, 
insects, and serpents. Besides a brilliant plumage, 
many of the birds have a very fine song. The troupiale, 
noted for its rich colours, sings delightfully in the 
environs of Pernambuco. The red-headed finch, larger 
than the European sparrow, pours forth a sweet and 
varied strain, in company with two species of wrens, a 
little before daylight. There are also several species of 
the thrush, which have a song somewhat different from 
that of the European thrush ; and two species of the 
linnet, whose strain is so soft and sweet that it dooms 
them to captivity in the houses. A bird called here 
Sangre do Buey, blood of the ox, cannot fail to engage 
your attention : he is of the passerine tribe, and very 
common about the houses ; the wings and tail are black, 
and every other part of the body a flaming red. In 
Guiana, there is a species exactly the same as this in 
shape, note, and economy, but differing in colour, its 
whole body being like black velvet; on its breast a 
tinge of red appears through the black. Thus nature 
has ordered this little Tangara to put on mourning 

g 2 



84 



WANDERINGS IX SOUTH AMERICA. 



to the north of the line, and wear scarlet to the south 
of it, 

For three months in the year the environs of Pernam- 
buco are animated beyond description. From 

Sg8.sohs 

November to March the weather is particu- 
larly fine j then it is that rich and poor, young and old, 
foreigners and natives, all issue from the city to enjoy 
the country till Lent approaches, when back they hie 
them. Villages and hamlets, where nothing before but 
rags was seen, now shine in all the elegance of dress ; 
every house, every room, every shed become eligible 
places for those whom nothing but extreme necessity 
could have forced to live there a few weeks ago : some 
join in the merry dance, others saunter up and down 
the orange-groves ; and towards evening the roads 
become a moving scene of silks and jewels, The gaming- 
tables have constant visitors ; there thousands are daily 
and nightly lost and won ; parties even sit down to try 
their luck round the outside of the door as well as in 
the room : — 

" Vestibulum ante ipsurn priniisque in faucibus aula? 
Luctus et ultrices, posuere sedilia curse." 

About six or seven miles from Pernambuco stands a 
^ ^ . pretty little village called Monteiro ; the 
river runs close by it, and its rural beauties 
seem to surpass all others in the neighbourhood ; there 
the Captain-General of Pernambuco resides during this 
time of merriment and joy. 

The traveller who allots a portion of his time to peep 
at his fellow-creatures in their relaxations, and accustoms 
himself to read their several little histories in their 
looks and gestures as he goes musing on, may have full 
occupation for an hour or two every clay at this season 



SECOND JOURNEY. 



85 



amid tlie variegated scenes around the pretty village of 
Monteiro. In the evening groups sitting at the door, 
he may sometimes see with a sigh how wealth and the 
prince's favour cause a booby to pass for a Solon, and 
be reverenced as such, while perhaps a poor neglected 
Camoens stands silent at a distance, awed by the 
dazzling glare of wealth and power. Eetired from the 
public road he may see poor Maria sitting under a palm- 
tree, with her elbow in her lap, and her head leaning 
on one side within her hand, weeping over her for- 
bidden bans. And as he moves on " with wandering 
step and slow," he may hear a broken-hearted nymph 
ask her faithless swain, — 

" How could you say my face was fair, 
And yet that face forsake ? 
How could you win my virgin heart, 
Yet leave that heart to break?" 

One afternoon, in an unfrequented part not far from 
Monteiro, these adventures were near being brought to 
a speedy and a final close : six or seven blackbirds, with 
a white spot betwixt the shoulders, were making a 
noise, and passing to and fro on the lower branches of 
a tree in an abandoned, weed-grown, orange orchard. 
In the long grass underneath the tree, apparently a pale 
green grasshopper was fluttering, as though it had got 
entangled in it. When you once fancy that the thing 
you are looking at is really what you take it for, the 
more you look at it the more you are convinced it is so. 
In the present case, this was a grasshopper beyond all 
doubt, and nothing more remained to be done but to 
wait in patience till it had settled, in order that you 
might run no risk of breaking its legs in attempting to 
lay hold of it while it was fluttering — it still kept 
fluttering ; and having quietly approached it, intending 



86 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



to make sure of it — behold, the head of a large rattle- 
snake appeared in the grass close by : an instantaneous 
spring backwards prevented fatal consequences. What 
had been taken for a grasshopper was, in fact, the 
elevated rattle of the snake in the act of announcing 
that he was quite prepared, though unwilling, to make 
a sure and deadly spring. He shortly after passed 
slowly from under the orange-tree to the neighbouring 
wood on the side of a hill : as he moved over a place 
bare of grass and weeds, he appeared to be about eight 
feet long : it was he who had engaged the attention of 
the birds, and made them heedless of danger from 
another quarter : they flew away on his retiring ■ one 
alone left his little life in the air, destined to become a 
specimen, mute and motionless, for the inspection of 
the curious in a far distant clime. 

It was now the rainy season ; the birds 

Rainy Season. ° 

were moulting : fifty-eight specimens of the 
handsomest of them in the neighbourhood of Pernam- 
buco had been collected ; and it was time to proceed 
elsewhere. The conveyance to the interior was by 
horses ; and this mode, together with the heavy rains, 
would expose preserved specimens to almost certain 
damage. The journey to Maranham by land, would 
take at least forty days. The route was not wild 
enough to engage the attention of an explorer, or 
civilized enough to afford common comforts to a 
traveller. By sea there were no opportunities, except 
slave ships. As the transporting poor negroes from 
port to port for sale pays well in Brazil, the ships' decks 
are crowded with them. This would not do. 

Excuse here, benevolent reader, a small tribute of 
gratitude to an Irish family, whose urbanity and goodness 



SECOND JOURNEY. 



87 



have long gained it the esteem and respect of all ranks 
in Pernambuco. The kindness and attention I received 
from Dennis Kearney, Esq. and his amiable lady, will 
be remembered with gratitude to my dying day. 

After wishing farewell to this hospitable 
cfyen2e kSf ° r f am ity> I embarked on board a Portuguese 
brig, with poor accommodations, for Cayenne 
in Guiana. The most eligible bed-room was the top of 
a hen-coop on deck. Even here, an unsavoury little 
beast, called bug, was neither shy nor deficient in 
appetite. 

The Portuguese seamen are famed for catching fish. 
One evening, under the line, four sharks made their 
appearance in the wake of the vessel. The sailors 
caught them all. 

On the fourteenth day after leaving Pernambuco, the 
brig cast anchor off the island of Cayenne. The 
entrance is beautiful. To windward, not far off, there 
are two bold wooded islands, called the Eather and 
Mother; and near them are others, their children, 
smaller, though as beautiful as their parents. Another 
is seen a long way to leeward of the family, and seems 
as if it had strayed from home, and cannot find his 
way back. The Erench call it "l'enfant perdu." As 
you pass the islands, the stately hills on the main, 
ornamented with ever-verdant foliage, show you that 
this is by far the sublimest scenery on the sea-coast, 
from the Amazons to the Oroonoquo. On casting your 
eye towards Dutch Guiana, you will see that the moun- 
tains become unconnected and few in number; and long 
before you reach Surinam, the Atlantic wave washes a 
Hat and muddy shore. 

Considerably to windward of Cayenne, and about 



88 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



„ A twelve leagues from land, stands a stately 

Constable rock. ° 

and towering rock, called the Constable. As 
nothing grows on it to tempt greedy and aspiring man 
to claim it as his own, the sea-fowl rest and raise their 
offspring there. The bird called the frigate is ever 
soaring round its rugged summit. Hither the phaeton 
bends his rapid flight, and flocks of rosy flamingos here 
defy the fowler's cunning. All aloug the coast, opposite 
the Constable, and indeed on every uncultivated part 
of it to windward and leeward, are seen innumerable 
quantities of snow-white egrets, scarlet curlews, spoon- 
bills, and flamingos. 

Cayenne is capable of being a noble and 
Cayenne 7 ° f productive colony. At present it is thought 
to be the poorest on the coast of Guiana. 
Its estates are too much separated one from the other, 
by immense tracts of forest ; and the revolutionary war, 
like a cold eastern wind, has chilled their zeal, and 
blasted their best expectations. 

The clove-tree, the cinnamon, pepper and nutmeg, 
and many other choice spices and fruits of the Eastern 
and Asiatic regions, produce abundantly in Cayenne. 

The town itself is prettily laid out, and 
was once well fortified. They tell you it 
might easily have been defended against the invading 
force of the two united nations ; but Yictor Hugues, 
its governor, ordered the tri-coloured flag to be struck ; 
and ever since that day, the standard of Braganza has 
waved on the ramparts of Cayenne. 

Governor of ^3- e wno nas received humiliations from 
Cayenne. ^ f this haughty, iron-hearted 

governor may see him now in Cayenne, stripped of all 
his revolutionary honours, broken down and ruined, 



SECOND JOURNEY. 



89 



and under arrest in his own house. He has four 
accomplished daughters, respected by the whole town. 
Towards the close of day, when the sun's rays are no 
longer oppressive, these much-pitied ladies are seen 
walking up and down the balcony with their aged 
parent, trying, by their kind and filial attention, to 
remove the settled gloom from his too guilty brow. 
This was not the time for a traveller to enjoy Cayenne. 

The hospitality of the inhabitants was the 
tahtsf Inliabi " same as ever, but they had lost their wonted 

gaiety in public, and the stranger might 
read in their countenances, as the recollection of recent 
humiliations and misfortunes every now and then kept 
breaking in upon them, that they were still in sorrow 
for their fallen country : the victorious hostile cannon 
of Waterloo still sounded in their ears : their Emperor 
was a prisoner amongst the hideous roeks of St. 
Helena ; and many a Frenchman who had fought and 
bled for France was now amongst them, begging for a 
little support to prolong a life which would be forfeited 
on the parent soil. To add another handful to the 
cypress and wormwood already scattered amongst these 
polite colonists, they had just received orders from the 
court of Janeiro to put on deep mourning for six 
months, and half-mourning for as many more, on 
account of the death of the Queen of Portugal. 

About a day's journey in the interior, is the cele- 
brated national plantation. This spot was judiciously 
chosen, for it is out of the reach of enemies' cruisers. 
Plantation of ^ i s called La Gabrielle. No plantation 

La Gabrielle. ^ ^ westem wor ld can v i e with La 

Grabrielle. Its spices are of the choicest kind ; its soil 
particularly favourable to them ; its arrangements beau- 



90 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



tiful ; and its director, Monsieur Martin, a botanist of 
first-rate abilities. This indefatigable naturalist ranged 
through the East, under a royal commission, in quest of 
botanical knowledge ; and during his stay in the western 
regions, has sent over to Europe from twenty to twenty- 
five thousand specimens, in botany and zoology. La 
Gabrielle is on a far- extending range of woody hills. 
Figure to yourself a hill in the shape of a bowl reversed, 
with the buildings on the top of it, and you will have 
an idea of the appearance of La Gabrielle. You 
approach the house through a noble avenue, five 
hundred toises long, of the choicest tropical fruit-trees, 
planted with the greatest care and judgment; and 
should you chance to stray through it, after sunset, 
when the clove-trees are in blossom, you would fane}- 
yourself in the Idalian groves, or near the banks of 
the Nile, where they were burning the finest incense, 
as the Queen of Egypt passed. 

On La Gabrielle there are twenty-two thousand clove- 
trees in full bearing. They are planted thirty feet 
asunder. Their lower branches touch the ground. In 
general the trees are topped at five-and-twenty feet 
high ; though you will see some here towering up above 
sixty. The black pepper, the cinnamon, and nutmeg 
are also in great abundance here, and very productive. 

TThile the stranger views the spicy groves of La 
Gabrielle, and tastes the most delicious fruits which 
have originally been imported hither from all parts of 
the tropical world, he will thank the government which 
has supported, and admire the talents of the gentleman 
who has raised to its present grandeur, this noble 
collection of useful fruits. There is a large nursery 
attached to La Gabrielle, where plants of all the 



SECOND JOURNEY. 



91 



different species are raised and distributed gratis to 
those colonists who wish to cultivate them. 

Not far from the banks of the river Oyapoc, to 
windward of Cayenne, is a mountain which 
The Cock of con t a ins . an immense cavern. Here the 

the Rock. 

Cock of the Eock is plentiful. He is about 
the size of a fan-tail pigeon, his colour a bright orange, 
and his wings and tail appear as though fringed ; his 
head is ornamented with a superb double-feathery crest, 
edged with purple. He passes the day amid gloomy 
damps and silence, and only issues out for food a short 
time at sunrise and sunset. He is of the gallinaceous 
tribe. The South- American Spaniards call him " Gallo 
del Eio Negro/' (Cock of the Black Eiver,) and suppose 
that he is only to be met with in the vicinity of that 
far-inland stream ; but he is common in the interior of 
Demerara, amongst the huge rocks in the forests of 
Macoushia ; and he has been shot south of the line, in 
the captainship of Para. 

The bird called by BufFon Grand Gobe-mouche, has 
never been found in Demerara, although very common 
in Cayenne. He is not quite so large as the jackdaw, 
and is entirely black, except a large spot under the 
throat, which is a glossy purple. 

You may easily sail from Cayenne to the river 
Surinam in two days. Its capital, Para- 

Paramaribo. . 

man bo, is handsome, rich, and populous : 
hitherto it has been considered by far. the finest town 
in Guiana ; but probably the time is not far off when 
the capital of Demerara may claim the prize of 
superiority. You may enter a creek above Paramaribo, 
and travel through the interior of Surinam, till you 
come to the Nicari, which is close to the large river 



92 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



Coryntin. When you have passed this river, there is a 
good public road to New Amsterdam, the capital of 
Berbice. 

On viewing New Amsterdam, it will 
sterdam Am ~ immediately strike you that something or 
other has intervened to prevent its arriving 
at that state of wealth and consequence for which its 
original plan shows it was once intended. What has 
caused this stop in its progress to the rank of a fine and 
populous city, remains for those to find out who are 
interested in it ; certain it is, that New Amsterdam has 
been languid for some years, and now the tide of com- 
merce seems ebbing fast from the shores of Berbice. 

Gay and blooming is the sister colony of 

Demerara. 

Demerara. Perhaps, kind reader, thou hast 
not forgot that it was from Stabroek, the capital of 
Demerara, that the adventurer set out, some years ago, 
to reach the Portuguese frontier fort, and collect the 
wourali poison. It was not intended, when this second 
sally was planned in England, to have visited Stabroek 
again by the route here described. The plan was, to 
have ascended the Amazons from Para, and got into the 
Eio Xegro, and from thence to have returned towards 
the source of the Essequibo, in order to examine the 
crystal mountains, and look once more for Lake Parima, 
or the White Sea; but on arriving at Cayenne, the 
current was running with such amazing rapidity to 
leeward, that a Portuguese sloop, which had been 
beating up towards Para for four weeks, was then only 
half-way. Ein cling, therefore, that a beat to the Amazons 
would be long, tedious, and even uncertain, and aware 
that the season for procuring birds with fine plumage 
had already set in, I left Cayenne in an American ship 



SECOND JOURNEY. 



93 



for Paramaribo, went through the interior to the 
Coryntin, stopped a few days in New Amsterdam, and 
proceeded to Demerara. If, gentle reader, thy patience 
be not already worn out, and thy eyes half closed in 
slumber, by perusing the dull adventures of this second 
sally, perhaps thou wilt pardon a line or two on De- 
merara j and then we will retire to its forests, to collect 
and examine the economy of its most rare and beautiful 
birds, and give the world a new mode of preserving 
them. 

Stabroek, the capital of Demerara, has been rapidly 
increasing for some years back ; and if pro- 
sperity go hand in hand with the present 
enterprising spirit, Stabroek, ere long, will be of the 
first colonial consideration. It stands on the eastern 
bank at the mouth of the Demerara, and enjoys all the 
advantages of the refreshing sea breeze ; the streets are 
spacious, well bricked, and elevated, the trenches clean, 
the bridges excellent, and the houses handsome. Almost 
every commodity and luxury of London may be bought 
.in the shops at Stabroek : its market wants better regu- 
lations. The hotels are commodious, clean, and well 
attended. Demerara boasts as fine and well-disciplined 
militia as any colony in the western world. 

The court of justice, where, in times of old, the 
bandage was easily removed from the eyes of 
Court of Jus- goddess, and her scales thrown out of 

tice. & 9 

equilibrium, now rises in dignity under the 
firmness, talents, and urbanity of Mr. President Eough. 

The plantations have an appearance of 
tions 6 planta " high cultivation ; a tolerable idea may be 

formed of their value, when you know that 
last year Demerara numbered seventy-two thousand 



94 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



nine hundred and ninety-nine slaves. They made about 
forty-four million pounds of sugar, near two million 
gallons of rum, above eleven million pounds of coffee, 
and three million eight hundred and nineteen thousand 
rive hundred and twelve pounds of cotton ; the receipt 
into the public chest was five hundred and fifty-three 
thousand nine hundred and fifty-six guilders ; the 
public expenditure, four hundred and fifty-one thousand 
six hundred and three guilders. 

Slavery can never be defended ; he whose 

a ^ ery * heart is not of iron can never wish to be able 
to defend it : while he heaves a sigh for the poor negro 
in captivity, he wishes from his soul that the traffic had 
been stifled in its birth ; but, unfortunately, the govern- 
ments of Europe nourished it, and now that they are 
exerting themselves to do away the evil, and ensure 
liberty to the sons of Africa, the situation of the 
plantation slaves is depicted as truly deplorable, and 
their condition wretched. It is not so. A Briton's 
heart, proverbially kind and generous, is not changed 
by climate, or its streams of compassion dried up by 
the scorching heat of a Demerara sun ; he cheers his, 
negroes in labour, comforts them in sickness, is kind to 
them in old age, and never forgets that they are his 
fellow-creatures. 

Instances of cruelty and depravity certainly occur 
here as well as all the world over ; but the edicts of 
the colonial government are well calculated to prevent 
them ; and the British planter, except here and there 
one, feels for the wrongs done to a poor ill-treated slave, 
and shows that his heart grieves for him by causing 
immediate redress, and preventing a repetition. 

Long may ye flourish, peaceful and liberal inhabitants 



SECOND JOURNEY. 



of Denierara. Your doors are ever open to harbour the 
harhourless ; your purses never shut to the wants of the 
distressed • many a ruined fugitive from Oroonoque 
will bless your kindness to him in the hour of need, 
when, flying from the woes of civil discord, without food 
or raiment, he begged for shelter underneath your roof. 
The poor sufferer in Trinidad, who lost his all in the 
devouring flames, will remember your charity to his 
latest moments. The traveller, as he leaves your port, 
casts a longing, lingering look behind ; your attentions, 
your hospitality, your pleasantry, and mirth are upper- 
most in his thoughts ; your prosperity is close to his 
heart. Let us now, gentle reader, retire from the busy 
scenes of man, and journey on towards the wilds in 
quest of the feathered tribe. 

Leave behind you your high-seasoned dishes, your 
wines, and your delicacies : carry nothing but 

Instructions . 

to future ad- what is necessary tor your own comfort, and 
the object in view, and depend upon the 
skill of an Indian, or your own, for fish and game. A 
sheet, about twelve feet long, ten wide, painted, and with 
loop-holes on each side, will be of great service ; in a few 
minutes you can suspend it betwixt two trees in the 
shape of a roof. Under this, in your hammock, you 
may defy the pelting shower, and sleep heedless of the 
dews of night. A hat, a shirt, and a light pair of 
trowsers will be all the raiment you require. Custom 
will soon teach you to tread lightly and barefoot on the 
little inequalities of the ground, and show you how to 
pass on, unwounded, amid the mantling briers. 

Snakes, in these wilds, are certainly an annoyance, 
though, perhaps, more in imagination than 
reality ; for you must recollect that the 



96 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



serpent is never the first to offend : his poisonous fang 
was not given him for conquest : he never inflicts a 
wound with it but to defend existence, Provided you 
walk cautiously, and do not absolutely touch him, you 
may pass in safety close by him. As he is often coiled 
up on the ground, and amongst the branches of the 
trees above you, a degree of circumspection is necessary, 
lest you unwarily disturb him. 

Tigers are too few, and too apt to fly before 

Ti°'6rs 

the noble face of man, to require a moment 
of your attention. 

The bite of the most noxious of the 

Insects. 

insects, at the very worst, only causes a 
transient fever, with a degree of pain more or less. 

Birds in general, with a few exceptions, 

Birds. . , n 

are not common in the very remote parts of 
the forest. The sides of rivers, lakes, and creeks, the 
borders of savannas, the old abandoned habitations of 
Indians and wood-cutters, seem to be their favourite 
haunts. 

Though least in size, the glittering mantle 
bir ^ mmin °- of the humming-bird entitles it to the first 
place in the list of the birds of the new 
world. It may truly be called the bird of paradise ; 
and had it existed in the old world, it would have 
claimed the title instead of the bird which has now the 
honour to bear it. See it darting through, the air 
almost as quick as thought ! — now it is within a yard of 
your face ! — in an instant gone now it flutters from 
flower to flower to sip the silver dew — it is now a ruby 
— now a topaz — now an emerald — now all burnished 
with gold ! It would be arrogant to pretend to describe 
this winged gem of nature after Buffon's elegant de- 
scription of it. 



SECOND JOURNEY. 



97 



Cayenne and Demerara produce the same humming- 
„ birds. Perhaps you would wish to know 

Haunts of 1 J 

the humming- something of their haunts. Chiefly in the 

birds. ° J 

months of July and August, the tree called 
Bois Immortel, very common in Demerara, bears abun- 
dance of red blossom, which stays on the tree for some 
weeks ; then it is that most of the different species of 
humming-birds are very plentiful. The wild red sage is 
also their favourite shrub, and they buzz like bees round 
the blossom of the wallaba-tree. Indeed, there is scarce a 
flower in the interior, or on the sea-coast, but what receives 
frequent visits from one or other of the species. 

On entering the forests, on the rising land in the in- 
terior, the blue and green, the smallest brown, no bigger 
than the humble bee, with two long feathers in the tail, 
and the little forked-tail purple- throated humming-birds, 
glitter before you in ever-changing attitudes. One species 
alone never shows his beauty in the sun ; and were it 
not for his lovely shining colours, you might almost be 
tempted to class him with the goat-suckers, on account 
of his habits. He is the largest of all the humming-birds, 
and is all red and changing gold green, except the head, 
which is black. He has two long feathers in the tail, 
which cross each other, and these have gained him the 
name of Karabimiti, or Ara humming-bird, from the 
Indians. You never find him on the sea-coast, or where 
the river is salt, or in the heart of the forest, unless fresh 
water be there. He 'keeps close by the side of woody 
fresh-water rivers, and dark and lonely creeks. He leaves 
his retreat before sunrise to feed on the insects over the 
water ; he returns to it as soon as the sun's rays cause a 
glare of light, is sedentary all day long, and comes out 
again for a short time after sunset. He builds his nest 

K 



98 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



on a twig over the water in the unfrequented creeks ; it 
looks like tanned cow leather. 

As you advance towards the mountains of Denierara, 
other species of humming-birds present themselves before 
you. It seems to be an erroneous opinion, that the hum- 
ming-bird lives entirely on honey-dew. Almost every 
flower of the tropical climates contains insects of one 
kind or other \ now, the humming-bird is most busy 
about the flowers an hour or two after sunrise, and after a 
shower of rain, and it is just at this time that the insects 
come out to the edge of the flower, in order that the sun's 
rays may dry the nocturnal dew and rain which they 
have received. On opening the stomach of the hum- 
ming-bird, dead insects are almost always found there. 

Next to the humming-birds, the cotingas 
display the gayest plumage. They are of the 
order of passeres, and you number five species betwixt 
the sea-coast and the rock Saba. Perhaps the scarlet co- 
tin ga is the richest of the five, and is one of those birds 
which are found in the deepest recesses of the forest. His 
crown is naming red ; to this abruptly succeeds a dark 
shining brown, reaching half way down the back : the 
remainder of the back, the rump, and tail, the extremity 
of which is edged with black, are a lively red ; the belly 
is a somewhat lighter red ; the breast reddish black ; the 
wings brown. He has no song, is solitary, and utters a 
monotonous whistle which sounds like "quet." He is 
fond of the seeds of the hitia-tree, and those of the 
siloabali and bastard siloabali-trees, which ripen in 
December, and continue on the trees for about two 
months. He is found throughout the year in Demerara ; 
still nothing is known of his incubation. The Indians all 
agree in telling you that they have never seen his nest. 



SECOND JOURNEY. 



99 



The purple- 
breasted Co- 
tinga, 



The purple-breasted cotinga has the throat 
and breast of a deep purple, the wings and 
tail black, and all the rest of the body a 
most lively shining blue. 

The purple-throated cotinga has black wings and tail, 
and every other part a light and glossy blue, save the 
throat, which is purple. 

The Pompadour cotinga is entirely purple, ex- 
m ^ _ cept his wings, which are white, their four 

The Pom- . 

padour Co- f[ r st feathers tipped with brown. The great 

tinga. rr . . b 

coverts of the wings are stiff, narrow, and 
pointed, being shaped quite different from those of any 
other bird. When you are betwixt this bird and the 
sun in his flight, he appears uncommonly brilliant. He 
makes a hoarse noise, which sounds like " Wallababa." 
Hence his name amongst the Indians. 

ISTone of these three cotingas have a song. They feed 
on the hitia, siloabali, and bastard siloabali seeds, the 
wild guava, the fig, and other fruit-trees of the forest. 
They are easily shot in these trees during the months of 
December, January, and part of February. The greater 
part of them disappear after this, and probably retire 
far away to breed. Their nests have never been found 
in Demerara. 

The fifth species is the celebrated Campanero of the 
The Cam- Spaniards, called Dara by the Indians, and 
panero. Bell-bird by the English. He is about the 
size of the jay. His plumage is white as snow. On 
his forehead rises a spiral tube nearly three inches long. 
It is jet black, dotted all over with small white feathers. 
It has a communication with the palate, and when filled 
with air, looks like a spire ; when empty, it becomes 
pendulous. His note is loud and clear, like the sound 

h 2 



100 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



of a bell, and may be heard at the distance of three 
miles. In the midst of these extensive wilds, generally 
on the dried top of an aged mora, almost out of gun 
reach, yon will see the campanero. ISTo sound or song 
from any of the winged inhabitants of the forest, not 
even the clearly pronounced " Whip-poor-will " from 
the goat-sucker, causes such astonishment as the toll of 
the campanero. 

With many of the feathered race, he pays the common 
tribute of a morning and an evening song ; and even 
when the meridian sun has shut in silence the mouths 
of almost the whole of animated nature, the campanero 
still cheers the forest. You hear his toll, and then a 
pause for a minute, then another toll, and then a pause 
again, and then a toll, and again a pause. Then he is 
silent for six or eight minutes, and then another toll, 
and so on. Acteon would stop in mid chace, Maria would 
defer her evening song, and Orpheus himself would drop 
his lute to listen to him, so sweet, so novel, and romantic 
is the toll of the pretty snow-white campanero. He is 
never seen to feed with the other cotingas, nor is it 
known in what part of Guiana he makes his nest. 

While the cotingas attract your attention 
by their superior plumage, the singular form 
of the toucan makes a 'lasting impression on your 
memory. There are three species of toucans in Demerara, 
and three diminutives, which may be called toucanets. 
The largest of the first species frequents the mangrove 
trees on the sea-coast. He is never seen in the interior 
till you reach Macoushia, where he is found in the 
neighbourhood of the river Tacatou. The other two 
species are very common. They feed entirety on the 
fruits of the forest, and though of the pie kind, never 



SECOND JOURNEY. 



101 



kill the young of other birds, or touch carrion. The 
larger is called Bouradi by the Indians, (which means 
nose,) the other, Scirou. They seem partial to each 
other's company, and often resort to the same feeding- 
tree, and retire together to the same shady noon-day 
retreat. They are very noisy in rainy weather at all hours 
of the day, and in fair weather, at morn and eve. The 
sound which the bouradi makes, is like the clear yelping 
of a puppy dog, and you fancy he says a pia-po-o-co," and 
thus the South American Spaniards call him Piapoco. 

All the toucanets feed on the same trees on which the 
toucan feeds, and every species of this family of enor- 
mous bill lays its eggs in the hollow trees. They are 
social, but not gregarious. You may sometimes see 
eight or ten in company, and from this you would 
suppose they are gregarious ; but, upon a closer exami- 
nation, you will find it has only been a dinner party, 
which breaks up and disperses towards roosting time. 

You will be at a loss to conjecture for what ends 
nature has overloaded the head of this bird with such an 
enormous bill. It cannot be for the offensive, as it has 
no need to wage war with any of the tribes of animated 
nature ; for its food is fruits and seeds, and those are 
in superabundance throughout the whole year in the 
regions where the toucan is found. It can hardly be 
for the defensive, as the toucan is preyed upon by no 
bird in South America, and were it obliged to be at 
war, the texture of the bill is ill adapted to give or 
receive blows, as you will see in dissecting it. It can- 
not be for any particular protection to the tongue, as 
the tongue is a perfect feather. 

- ^ k t ^ ne flight of the toucan is by jerks ; in 
g ' the action of flying it seems incommoded by 



102 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



this liuge disproportioned feature, and the head seems 
as if bowed clown to the earth by it against its will 
If the extraordinary form and size of the bill expose 
the toucan to ridicule, its colours make it amends. 

Were a specimen of each species of the 
thebm^ ° f t° llcan presented to you, you would pro- 
nounce the bill of the bouradi the most rich 
and beautiful ; on the ridge of the upper mandible a 
broad stripe of most lovely yellow extends from the 
head to the point ; a stripe of the same breadth, though 
somewhat deeper yellow, falls from it at right angles 
next the head down to the edge of the mandible • then 
follows a black stripe, half as broad, falling at right 
angles from the ridge, and running narrower along the 
edge to within half an inch of the point The rest of 
the mandible is a deep bright red. The lower mandible 
has no yellow ; its black and red are distributed in the 
same manner as on the upper one, with this difference, 
that there is black about an inch from the point. The 
stripe corresponding to the deep yellow stripe on the 
upper mandible is sky blue. It is worthy of remark 
that all these brilliant colours of the bill are to be 
found in the plumage of the body, and the bare skin 
round the eye. 

All these colours, except the blue, are inherent in 
the horn • that part which appears blue is in reality 
transparent white, and receives its colour from a thin 
piece of blue skin iusicle. This superb bill fades in 
death, and in three or four days' time, has quite lost its 
original colours. 

Till within these few years, no idea of the true colours 
of the bill could be formed from the stuffed toucans 
brought to Europe. About eight years ago, while eating 



SECOND JOURNEY. 



103 



a boiled toucan, the thought struck me that the colours 
in the bill of a preserved specimen might be kept as 
bright as those in life. A series of experiments 

Preserves 

a bill of the proved this beyond a doubt. If you take 
your penknife and cut away the roof of the 
upper mandible, you will find that the space betwixt it 
and the outer shell contains a large collection of veins, 
and small osseous fibres running in all directions 
through the whole extent of the bill. Clear away all 
these with your knife, and you will come to a substance 
more firm than skin, but of not so strong a texture as 
the horn itself; cut this away also, and behind it is 
discovered a thin and tender membrane ; yellow, where 
it has touched the yellow part of the horn; blue, where 
it has touched the red part, and black towards the edge 
and point. When dried, this thin and tender membrane 
becomes nearly black ; as soon as it is cut away, nothing 
remains but the outer horn, red and yellow, and now 
become transparent ; the under mandible must undergo 
the same operation. Great care must be taken, and the 
knife used very cautiously, when you are cutting through 
the different parts close to where the bill joins on to the 
head. If you cut away too much, the bill drops off; if 
you press too hard, the knife comes through the horn ; 
if you leave too great a portion of the membrane, it 
appears through the horn, and by becoming black when 
dried, makes the horn appear black also, and has a 
bad effect ; judgment, caution, skill, and practice, will 
ensure success. 

You have now cleared the bill of all those bodies 
which are the cause of its apparent fading ; for, as has 
been said before, these bodies dry in death, and become 
quite discoloured, and appear so through the horn ; and 



104 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



reviewing the bill in this state, you conclude that its 
former bright colours are lost. 

Something still remains to be done. You have ren- 
dered the bill transparent by the operation, and that 
transparency must be done away to make it appear 
perfectly natural. Pound some clean chalk, and give it 
enough water till it be of the consistency of tar ; add 
a proportion of gum arabic to make it adhesive ; then 
take a camel-hair brush, and give the inside of both 
mandibles a coat ; apply a second when the first is dry, 
then another, and a fourth to finish all. The gum 
arabic will prevent the chalk from cracking and falling 
off. If you remember, there is a little space of trans- 
parent white in the lower mandible, which originally 
appeared blue, but which became transparent white as 
soon as the thin piece of blue skin was cut away ; this 
must be painted blue inside. When all this is com- 
pleted, the bill will please you ; it will appear in its 
original colours. Probably your own abilities will 
suggest a cleverer mode of operating than the mode 
here described. A small gouge would assist the- pen- 
knife, and render the operation less difficult. 

The Houtou ranks high in beauty amongst 
The Houtou. ^ e ]^ r( j s Q £ Demerara ; his whole body is 
green, with a bluish cast in the wings and tail ; his 
crown, which he erects at pleasure, consists of black in 
the centre, surrounded with lovely blue of two different 
shades : he has a triangular black spot, edged with blue, 
behind the eye extending to the ear ; and on his breast 
a sable tuft, consisting of nine feathers edged also with 
blue. This bird seexns to suppose that its beauty can 
be increased by trimming the tail, which undergoes 
the same operation as our hair in a barber's shop, only 



SECOND JOURNEY. 



105 



with this difference, that it uses its own beak, which 
is serrated, in lieu of a pair of scissors. As soon as his 
tail is full grown, he begins about an inch from the 
extremity of the two longest feathers in it, and cuts 
away the web on both sides of the shaft, making a gap 
about an inch long : both male and female Adonise 
their tails in this manner, which gives them a remark- 
able appearance amongst all other birds. While we 
consider the tail of the houtou blemished and defective, 
were he to come amongst us, he would probably con- 
sider our heads, cropped and bald, in no better light. 

He who wishes to observe this handsome 
bird in his native haunts, must be in the 
forest at the morning's dawn. The houtou shuns the 
society of man : the plantations and cultivated parts are 
too much disturbed to engage it to settle there ; the thick 
and gloomy forests are the places preferred by the soli- 
tary houtou. In those far-extending wilds, about day- 
break, you hear him articulate, in a distinct and mourn- 
ful tone, "houtou, houtou." Move cautiously on to 
where the sound proceeds from, and you will see him 
sitting in the underwood, about a couple of yards from 
the ground, his tail moving up and down every time 
he articulates "houtou." He lives on insects and the 
berries amongst the underwood, and very rarely is seen 
in the lofty trees, except the bastard siloabali-tree, the 
fruit of which is grateful to him. He makes no nest, 
but rears his young in a hole in the sand, generally on 
the side of a hill. 

While in quest of the houtou, you will now and 
then fall in with the jay of Guiana, called by the 
rrrt t f Indians Ibibirou. Its forehead is black, the 

The Jay of 7 

Guiana. re st of the head white ; the throat and 



106 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



breast like the English magpie : about an inch of the 
extremity of the tail is white, the other part of it, 
together with the back and wings, a greyish changing 
purple j the belly is white. There are generally six or 
eight of them in company ; they are shy and garrulous, 
and tarry a very short time in one place ; they are 
never seen in the cultivated parts. 

Through the whole extent of the forest, chiefly from 
sunrise till nine o'clock in the morning, you hear a 
sound of " wow, wow, wow, wow." This is the bird 
called Boclora by the Indians. It is smaller 

The Boclora. , , . , . ., 

than the common pigeon, and seems, in some 
measure, to partake of its nature : its head and breast 
are blue ; the back and rump somewhat resemble the 
colour on the peacock's neck; its belly is a bright 
yellow ; the legs are so very short that it always appears 
as if sitting on the branch ; it is as ill adapted for 
walking as the swallow ; its neck, for about an inch all 
round, is quite bare of feathers ; but this deficiency is 
not seen, for it always sits with its head drawn in upon 
its shoulders. It sometimes feeds with the cotingas on 
the guava and hitia-trees ; but its chief nutriment 
seems to be insects, and, like most birds which follow 
this prey, its chaps are well armed with bristles : it is 
found in Demerara at all times of the year, and makes 
a nest resembling that of the stock dove. This bird 
never takes long flights, and when it crosses a river or 
creek, it goes by long jerks. 

The boclora is very unsuspicious, appearing quite 
heedless of danger : the report of a gun within twenty 
yards will not cause it to leave the branch on which it 
is sitting, and you may often approach it so near as 
almost to touch it with the end of your bow. Perhaps 



SECOND JOURNEY. 



107 



there is no bird known whose feathers are so slightly 
fixed to the skin as those of the boclora. After shoot- 
ing it, if it touch a branch in its descent, or if it drop 
on hard ground, whole heaps of feathers fall off : on 
this account it is extremely hard to procure a specimen 
for preservation. As soon as the skin is dry in the 
preserved specimen, the feathers become as well fixed 
as those in any other bird, 

Another species, larger than the boclora, 
attracts much of your notice in these wilds : 
it is called Cuia by the Indians, from the sound of its 
voice j its habits are the same as those of the boclora, 
but its colours different; its head, breast, back, and 
rump, are a shining, changing green ; its tail not 
quite so bright ; a black bar runs across the tail to- 
wards the extremity, and the outside feathers are 
partly white as in the boclora : its belly is entirely ver- 
milion, a bar of white separating it from the green on 
the breast. 

There are diminutives of both these birds ; they 
have the same habits, with a somewhat different 
plumage, and about half the size. Arrayed from head 

to tail in a robe of richest sable hue, the 
bird. 6 Rlce " kird called Bice-bird loves spots cultivated 

by the hand of man. The woodcutter's 
house on the hills in the interior, and the planter's 
habitation on the sea-coast, equally attract this songless 
species of the order of pie, provided the Indian corn 
be ripe there. He is nearly of the jackdaw's size, and 
makes his nest far away from the haunts of men ; he 
may truly be called a blackbird : independent of his 
plumage, his beak, inside and out, his legs, his toes, 
and claws are jet black. 



108 WAXDERIXGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



Mankind, by clearing the ground, and sowing a 
variety of seeds, induces many kinds of "birds to leave 
their native haunts, and come and settle near him : 
their little depredations on his seeds and fruits prove 
that it is the property, and not the proprietor, which 
has the attractions. 

One bird, however, in Demerara is not 
e4 J? e Cas " actuated by selfish motives : this is the 

SlC^Llc. " 

Cassique ; in size, he is larger than the star- 
ling ; he courts the society of man, but disdains to 
live by his labours. When nature calls for support, 
he repairs to the neighbouring forest, and there par- 
takes of the store of fruits and seeds which she has 
produced in abundance for her aerial tribes. When 
his repast is over, he returns to man, and pays the little 
tribute which he owes him for his protection ; be takes 
his station on a tree close to his house, and there, for 
hours together, pours forth a succession of imitative 
notes. His own song is sweet, but very short. If a 
toucan be yelping in the neighbourhood, he drops it, 
and imitates him. Then he will amuse his protector 
with the cries of the different species of the wood- 
pecker ; and when the sheep bleat, he will distinctly 
answer them. Then comes his own song again, and if 
a puppy clog, or a Guinea fowl interrupt him, he takes 
them off admirably, and by his different gestures 
during the time, you would conclude that he enjoys 
the sport. 

The cassique is gregarious, and imitates any sound 
he hears with such exactness, that he goes by no other 
name than that of Mocking-bird amongst the colonists. 

At breeding time, a number of the pretty choristers 
resort to a tree near the planter's house, and from its 



SECOND JOURNEY. 



109 



outside branches weave their pendulous nests. So 
conscious do they seem that they never give offence, 
and so little suspicious are they of receiving any injury 
from man, that they will choose a tree within forty 
yards from his house, and occupy the branches so low 
down, that he may peep into the nests. A tree in 
Waratilla creek affords a proof of this. 

The proportions of the cassique are so fine, that he 
may be said to be a model of symmetry in ornithology. 
On each wing he has a bright yellow spot, and his 
rump, belly, and half the tail, are of the same colour. 
All the rest of the body is black. His beak is the 
colour of sulphur, but it fades in death, and requires 
the same operation as the bill of the toucan to make it 
keep its colours. Up the rivers, in the interior, there 
is another cassique, nearly the same size, and of the 
same habits, though not gifted with its powers of imi- 
tation. Except in breeding time, you will see hundreds 
of them retiring to roost, amongst the moca-moca-trees 
and low shrubs on the banks of the Demerara, after 
you pass the first island. They are not common on 
the sea-coast. The rump of the cassique is a flaming 
scarlet. All the rest of the body is a rich glossy black. 
Hls bill is sulphur colour. You may often see numbers 
of this species weaving their pendulous nests on one 
side of a tree, while numbers of the other species are 
busy in forming theirs on the opposite side of the same 
tree. Though such near neighbours, the females are 
never observed to kick up a row, or come to blows ! 
Another species of cassique, as large as a crow, is 
. very common in the plantations. In the 

Another r 

species of the morning he generally repairs to a large tree, 

Gctssicjue. 

and there, with his tail spread over his back, 



110 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



and shaking his lowered wings, he produces notes 
which though they cannot be said to amount to a song, 
still have something very sweet and pleasing in them. 
He makes his nest in the same form as the other 
cassiques. It is above four feet long • and when you 
pass under the tree, which often contains fifty or sixty 
of them, you cannot help stopping to admire them as 
they wave to and fro, the sport of every storm and 
breeze. The rump is chestnut • ten feathers of the 
tail are a fine yellow, the remaining two, which are the 
middle ones, are black, and an inch shorter than the 
others. His bill is sulphur colour ; all the rest of the 
body black, with here and there shades of brown. He 
has five or six long narrow black feathers on the back 
of his head, which he erects at pleasure. 

There is one more species of cassique in Denierara, 
which always prefers the forests to the cultivated parts. 
His economy is the same as that of the other cassiques. 
He is rather smaller than the last described bird. His 
body is greenish, and his tail and rump paler than those 
of the former. Half of his beak is red. 

You would not be long in the forests of 
peckers* Demerara, without noticing the woodpeckers. 

You meet with them feeding at all hours of 
the day. Well may they do so. Were they to follow 
the example of most of the other birds, and only feed 
in the morning and evening, they would be often on 
short allowance, for they sometimes have to labour 
three or four hours at the tree before they get to their 
food. The sound which the largest kind makes in 
hammering against the bark of the tree, is so loud, that 
you would never suppose it to proceed from the efforts 
of a bird. You would take it to be the woodman, with 



SECOND JOURNEY. 



Ill 



his axe, trying by a sturdy blow, often repeated, 
whether the tree were sound or not. There are four- 
teen species here ; the largest the size of a magpie, the 
smallest no bigger than the wren. They are all beauti- 
ful ; and the greater part of them have their heads 
ornamented with a fine crest, movable at pleasure. 

It is said if you once give a dog a bad name, whether 
innocent or guilty, he never loses it. It sticks close to 
him wherever he goes. He has many a kick and many 
a blow to bear on account of it ; and there is nobody 
to stand up for him. The woodpecker is little better 
off. The proprietors of woods, in Europe, have long 
accused him of injuring their timber, by boring holes 
in it, and letting in the water, which soon rots it. The 
colonists in America have the same complaint against 
him. Had he the power of speech, which Ovid's birds 
possessed in days of yore, he could soon make a defence. 
" Mighty lord of the woods," he would say to man, 
" why do you wrongfully accuse me 1 why do you hunt 
me up and down to death for an imaginary offence ? I 
have never spoiled a leaf of your property, much less 
your wood. Your merciless shot strikes me, at the 
very time I am doing you a service. But your short- 
sightedness will not let you see it, or your pride is above 
examining closely the actions of so insignificant a little 
bird as I am. If there be that spark of feeling in 
your breast, which they say man possesses, or ought to 
possess, above all other animals, clo a poor injured 
creature a little kindness, and watch me in your woods 
only for one day. I never wound your healthy trees. 
I should perish for want in the attempt. The sound 
bark would easily resist the force of my bill ; and were 
I even to pierce through it, there would be nothing 



112 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



inside that I could fancy, or my stomach, digest. I 
often visit them, it is true, but a knock or two convince 
me that I must go elsewhere for support ; and were you 
to listen attentively to the sound which my bill causes, 
you would know whether I am upon a healthy or an 
unhealthy tree. Wood and bark are not my food. I 
live entirely upon the insects which have already formed 
a lodgement in the distempered tree. When the sound 
informs me that my prey is there, I labour for hours 
together till I get at it : and by consuming it, for my 
own support, I prevent its further depredations in that 
part. Thus I discover for you your hidden and un- 
suspected foe, which has been devouring your wood in 
such secrecy, that you had not the least suspicion it 
was there. The hole which I make in order to get at 
the pernicious vermin, will be seen by you as you pass 
under the tree. I leave it as a signal to tell you, that 
your tree has already stood too long. It is past its 
prime. Millions of insects, engendered by disease, are 
preying upon its vitals. Ere long it will fall a log in 
useless ruins. Warned by this loss, cut down the rest 
in time, and spare, spare the unoffending wood- 
pecker." 

In the rivers, and different creeks, you 
fis'S 8 King " lllimDer S1X species of the King-fisher. They. 

make their nest in a hole in the sand on the 
side of the bank. As there is always plenty of foliage 
to protect them from the heat of the sun, they feed at 
all hours of the clay. Though their plumage is prettily 
varied, still it falls far short of the brilliancy dis- 
played by the English >king-fisher. This little native 
of Britain would outweigh them altogether in the scale 
of beauty. 



SECOND JOURNEY. 



113 



A bird called Jacamar is often taken for a 
mar he Ja ° a " king-fisher, but it has no relationship to that 
tribe ; it frequently sits in the trees over the 
water, and as its beak bears some resemblance to that of 
the king-fisher, this may probably account for its being 
taken for one. It feeds entirely upon insects ; it sits on 
a branch in motionless expectation, and as soon as a fly, 
butterfly, or moth passes by, it darts at it, and returns 
to the branch it had just left. It seems an indolent, 
sedentary bird, shunning the society of all others in the 
forest. It never visits the plantations, but is found at 
all times of the year in the woods. There are four species 
of jacamar in Demerara ; they are all beautiful ; the 
largest, rich and superb in the extreme. Its plumage is 
of so fine a changing blue and golden green, that it may 
be ranked with the choicest of the humming-birds. Na- 
ture has denied it a song, but given a costly garment in 
lieu of it. The smallest species of jacamar is very common 
in the dry savannas. The second size, all golden green 
on the back, must be looked for in the wallaba forest. 
The third is found throughout the whole extent of these 
wilds ; and the fourth, which is the largest, frequents 
the interior, where you begin to perceive stones in the 
ground. 

When you have penetrated far into Ma- 
piaie 16 Tr ° U " coushia, you hear the pretty songster, called 
Troupiale, pour forth a variety of sweet and 
plaintive notes. This is the bird which the Portuguese 
call the nightingale of Guiana ; its predominant colours 
are rich orange and shining black, arrayed to great 
advantage ; his delicate and well-shaped frame seems 
unable to bear captivity. The Indians sometimes bring 
down troupiaies to Stabroek, but in a few months they 

i 



1U 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



languish, and die in a cage. They soon become very 
familiar : and if yon allow them the liberty of the house, 
they live longer than in a cage, and appear in better 
spirits ; but, when you least expect it, they drop down 
and die in epilepsy. 

Smaller in size, and of colour not so rich, 
eie^°of and somewhat differently arranged, another 
species of troupiale sings melodiously in 
Demerara. The woodcutter is particularly favoured 
by him ; for while the hen is sitting on her nest built 
in the roof of the woodcutters house, he sings for hours 
together close by : he prefers the forests to the culti- 
vated parts. 

You would not grudge to stop for a few minutes as 
you are walking in the plantations, to ob- 

Third ^ 4-1^ A ' ' 1 ' 

cies of Trou- serve a third species 01 troupiale : his wings, 
tail, and throat are black, all the rest of the 
body is a bright yellow. There is something very sweet 
and plaintive in his song, though much shorter than 
that of the troupiale in the interior. 

A fourth species goes in flocks from place 

Fourth spe- _ , _ . r 

cies of Trou- to place in the cultivated parts at the time 
the Indian corn is ripe; he is all black, 
except the head and throat, which are yellow ; his 
attempt at song is not worth attending to. 

Wherever there is a wild fig-tree ripe, a 
c£ ngara Spe " niunerous species of birds, called Tangara, is 
sure to be on it. There are eighteen beau- 
tiful species here. Their plumage is very rich and 
diversified ; some of them boast six separate colours ; 
others have the blue, purple, green, and black so kindly 
blended into each other, that it would be impossible to 
mark their boundaries ; while others again exhibit them 



SECOND JOURNEY. 



115 



strong, distinct, and abrupt : many of these tangaras 
have a fine song. They seem to partake much of the 
nature of our linnets, sparrows, and finches. Some of 
them are fond of the plantations ; others are never seen 
there, preferring the wild seeds of the forest to the 
choicest fruits planted by the hand of man. 

On the same fig-trees to which they repair, 
spedes ikin an( ^ °^ en accidentally up and down the 
forest, you fall in with four species of 
Manikin. The largest is white and black, with the 
feathers on the throat remarkably long ; the next in size 
is half red and half black ; the third, black, with a white 
crown ; the fourth, black, with a golden crown, and red 
feathers at the knee. The half red and half black 
species is the scarcest. There is a creek in the Demerara 
called Camouni. About ten minutes from the mouth 
you see a common-sized fig-tree on your right hand, as 
you ascend, hanging over water ; it bears a very small 
fig twice a year. When its fruit is ripe, this manikin 
is on the tree from morn till eve. 

On all the ripe fig-trees in the forest you 
The small gee ^ e "^[^ called the small Tiger-bird. 

Tiger-bird. © 

Like some of our belles and dandies, it has a 
gaudy vest to veil an ill-shaped body ; the throat, and 
part of the head, are a bright red ; the breast and belly 
have black spots on a yellow ground ; the wings are a 
dark green, black, and white ; and the rump and tail 
black and green. Like the manikin, it has no song : it 
depends solely upon a showy garment for admiration. 
Devoid, too, of song, and in a still superber garb, the 

Yawaraciri comes to feed on the same tree. 
The Ya- k as a foi^k velvet from the eyes 

waracm. J 

to the beak ; its legs are yellow ; its throat, 
i 2 



116 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



wings, and tail, black ; all the rest of the body a charm- 
ing blue. Chiefly in the dry savannas, and here and 
there accidentally in the forest, you see a songless 
yawaraciri still lovelier than the last : his crown is 
w r hitish blue, arrayed like a coat of mail ; his tail is 
black, his wings black and yellow ; legs red ; and the 
whole body a glossy blue. Whilst roving through the 
forest, ever and anon you see individuals of the wren 
species, busy amongst the fallen leaves, or seeking in- 
sects at the roots of the trees. 

Here, too, you find six or seven species of small birds, 
whose backs appear to be overloaded with silky plumage. 
One of these, with a chestnut breast, smoke-coloured 
back, tail red, white feathers like horns on his head, 
and white narrow- pointed feathers under the jaw, feeds 
entirely upon ants. When a nest of large light brown 
ants emigrates, one following the other in meandering 
lines above a mile long, you see this bird watching 
them, and every now and then picking them up. When 
they disappear he is seen no more : perhaps this is the 
only kind of ant he is fond of : when these ants are 
stirring, you are sure to find him near them. You can- 
not well mistake the ant after you have once 
been in its company, for its sting is very 
severe, and you can hardly, shoot the bird, and pick it 
up, without having five or six upon you. 

Parrots and Parrots and Paroquets are very numerous 
Paroquets. here, and of many different kinds. You will 
know when they are near you in the forest, not only by 
the noise they make, but also by the fruits and seeds 
which they let fall while they are feeding. 
Th h . ^ The Hia-hia parrot, called in England the 
parrot of the sun, is very remarkable : he can 



SECOND JOURNEY. 



117 



erect at pleasure a fine radiated circle of tartan feathers 
quite round the back of his head from jaw to jaw. The 
fore part of his head is white; his back, tail, and wings, 
green ; and his breast and belly, tartan. 

Superior in size and beauty to every parrot 
of South America, the Ara will force you to 
take your eyes from the rest of animated nature, and 
gaze at him : his commanding strength, the flaming 
scarlet of his body, the lovely variety of red, yellow, 
blue, and green in his wings, the extraordinary length 
of his scarlet and blue tail, seem all to join and demand 
for him the title of emperor of all the parrots. He is 
scarce in Demerara till you reach the confines of the 
Macoushi country ; there he is in vast abundance ; he 
mostly feeds on trees of the palm species. "When the 
coucourite-trees have ripe fruit on them, they are covered 
with this magnificent parrot : he is not shy or wary ; 
you may take your blow-pipe and quiver of poisoned 
arrows, and kill more than you are able to carry back 
to your hut. They are very vociferous, and, like the 
common parrots, rise up in bodies towards sunset, and 
fly two and two to their place of rest. It is a grand 
sight in ornithology to see thousands of aras flying over 
your head, low enough to let you have a full view of 
their flaming mantle. The Indians find their flesh very 
good, and the feathers serve for ornaments in their 
head-dresses. They breed in the holes of trees, are 
easily reared and tamed, and learn to speak pretty 
distinctly. 

Another species frequents the low lands of Demerara. 
He is nearly the size of the scarlet ara, but much in- 
ferior in plumage. Blue and yellow are his predomi- 
nant colours. 



118 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 

The Bittern Along the creeks and river sides, and in 
the wet savannas, six species of the Bittern 
will ecgage your attention. They are all handsome. 
The smallest not so large as the English water-hen. 

In the savannas, too, you will sometimes 
white Egrette snr P r ^ se the Snow- white Egrette, whose back 
is adorned with the plumes from which it 
takes its name. Here too the spur- winged water-hen, 
the blue and green water-hen, and two other species of 
ordinary plumage, are found. While in quest of these, 
the blue heron, the large and small brown heron, the 
boat-bill, and Muscovy duck, now and then rise up 
before you. 

When the sun has sunk in the western woods, no 
longer agitated by the breeze ; when you can only see 
a straggler or two of the feathered tribe hastening to 
join its mate, already at its roosting-place, 
sucker G ° at " ^en ^ * s ^ ia ^ * ne g oa tsueker comes out of 
the forest, where it has sat all day long in 
slumbering ease, unmindful of the gay and busy scenes 
around it. Its eyes are too delicately formed to bear the 
light, and thus it is forced to shun the flaming face of 
day, and wait in patience till Mght invites him to par- 
take of the pleasures her dusky presence brings. 

The harmless, unoffending goatsucker, from the time 
of Aristotle down to the present day, has been in 
disgrace with man. Father has handed down to son, 
and author to author, that this nocturnal thief subsists 
by milking the flocks. Poor injured little bird of night, 
how sadly hast thou suffered, and how foul a stain has 
inattention to facts put upon thy character ! Thou hast 
never robbed man* of any part of his property, nor 
deprived the kid of a drop of milk. 



SECOND JOURNEY. 



119 



When the moon shines bright, you may have a fair 
opportunity of examining the goatsucker. You will see 
it close by the cows, goats, and sheep, jumping up every 
now and then, under their bellies. Approach a little 
nearer, — he is not shy, "he fears no danger, for he knows 
no sin." See how the nocturnal fiies are tormenting the 
herd, and with what dexterity he springs up and catches 
them, as fast as they alight on the belly, legs, and udder 
of the animals. Observe how quiet they stand, and how 
sensible they seem of his good offices, for they neither 
strike at him, nor hit him with their tail, nor tread on 
him, nor try to drive him away as an uncivil intruder. 
Were you to dissect him, and inspect his stomach, you 
would find no milk there. It is full of the flies which 
have been annoying the herd. 

The prettily mottled plumage of the goat- 
sucker, like that of the owl, wants the lustre 
which is observed in the feathers of the birds of day. 
This, at once, marks him as a lover of the pale moon's 
nightly beams. There are nine species here. The largest 
appears nearly the size of the English wood owl. Its cry 
is so remarkable, that having once heard it you will never 
forget it. When night reigns over these immeasurable 
wilds, whilst lying in your hammock, you will hear this 
goatsucker lamenting like one in deep distress. A 
stranger would never conceive it to be the cry of a bird. 
He would say it was the departing voice of a midnight 
murdered victim, or the last wailing of Mobe for her 
poor children, before she was turned into stone. Sup- 
pose yourself in hopeless sorrow, begin with a high loud 
note, and pronounce, " ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha," each 
note lower and lower, till the last is scarcely heard, 
pausing a moment or two betwixt every note, and you 



120 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 

will have some idea of the moaning of the largest goat- 
sucker in Demerara. 

Four other species of the goatsucker articulate some 
words so distinctly, that they have received their names 
from the sentences they utter, and absolutely bewilder 
the stranger on his arrival in these parts. The most 
common one sits down close by your door, and flies and 
alights three or four yards before you, as you walk along 
the road, crying, " Who-are-you, who-who-who-are-you." 
Another bids you, "Work- away, work-work-work-away. " 
A third cries, mournfully, " Willy-corae-go. Willy- 
Willy- Willy-eonie-go.'' And high up in the country, 
a fourth tells you to " Whip-poor- Will. Whip-whip- 
whip-poor- Will. " 

You will never persuade the negro to destroy these 
birds, or get the Indian to let fly his arrow at them. 
They are birds of omen, and reverential dread. Jumbo, 
the demon of Africa, has them under his command ; and 
they equally obey the Yabahou, or Demerara Indian 
devil. They are the receptacles for departed souls, who 
come back again to earth, unable to rest for crimes done 
in their days of nature ; or they are expressly sent by 
Jumbo, or Yabahou, to haunt cruel and hard-hearted 
masters, and retaliate injuries received from them. If 
the largest goatsucker chance to cry near the white man's 
door, sorrow and grief will soon be inside ; and they ex- 
pect to see the master waste away with a slow consum- 
ing sickness. If it be heard close to the negro's or 
Indian's hut, from that night misfortune sits brooding 
over it ; and they await the event in terrible suspense. 

You will forgive the poor Indian of Guiana for this. 
He knows no better ; he has nobody to teach him. But 
shame it is, that in our own civilized country, the black 



SECOND JOURNEY. 



121 



cat and broomstaff should be considered as conductors 
to and from the regions of departed spirits. 

Many years ago I knew poor harmless 
Mary ; old age had marked her strongly, just 
as he will mark you and me, should w^e arrive at her 
years and carry the weight of grief which bent her double. 
The old men of the village said she had been very pretty 
in her youth • and nothing could be seen more comely 
than Mary when she danced on the green. He who had 
gained her heart left her for another, less fair, though 
richer than Mary. From that time she became sad and 
pensive ; the rose left her cheek, and she was never 
more seen to dance round the May-pole -on the green : 
her expectations were blighted ; she became quite in- 
different "fco everything around her, and seemed to think 
of nothing but how she could best attend her mother, 
who was lame, and not long for this life. Her mother 
had begged a black kitten from some boys who were 
going to drown it, and in her last illness she told Mary 
to be kind to it for her sake. 

When age and want had destroyed the symmetry of 
Mary's fine form, the village began to consider her as 
one who had dealings with spirits ; her cat confirmed 
the suspicion. If a cow died, or a villager wasted away 
with an unknown complaint, Mary and her cat had it 
to answer for. Her broom sometimes served her for a 
walking-stick i and if ever she supported her tottering 
frame with it as far as the May-pole, where once, in 
youthful bloom and beauty, she had attracted the eyes 
of all, the boys would surround her, and make sport of 
her, while her cat had neither friend nor safety beyond 
the cottage wall. Nobody considered it cruel or un- 
charitable to torment a witch ; and it is probable, long 



122 



"WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



before this, that cruelty, old age, and want have worn 
her out, and that both poor Mary and her cat have 
ceased to be. 

Would you wish, to pursue the different species of 
game, well-stored and boundless is your range in Deme- 
rara. Here no one dogs you, and afterwards clandes- 
tinely inquires if you have a hundred a year in land to 
entitle you to enjoy such patrician sport. Here no saucy 
intruder asks if you have taken out a licence, by virtue 
of which you are allowed to kill the birds which have 
bred upon your own property. Here 

" You are as free as when God first made man, 
Ere the vile laws of servitude "began, 
And wild in woods the noble savage ran." 

Before the morning's dawn you hear a noise in the 
forest, which sounds like u duraquaura fi often repeated. 

This is the partridge, a little smaller, and 
tricbe 6 Pai " differing somewhat in colour from the Eng- 
lish partridge : it lives entirely in the forest, 
and probably the young brood very soon leave their 
parents, as you never flush more than two birds in the 
same place, and in general only one. 

About the same hour, and sometimes even 

Two species , . . p , 

of the Maam at midnight, you hear two species 01 Maam, 
or Tinamou, send forth their long and plain- 
tive whistle from the depth of the forest. The flesh 
of both is delicious. The largest is plumper, and almost 
equals in size the black cock of Northumberland. The 
quail is said to be here, though rare. 

The Hannaquoi, which some have compared to the 
The Hanna- pheasant, though with little reason, is very 
quoL common. 

Here are also two species of the Powise, or Hocco, 



SECOND JOURNEY. 



123 



and two of the small wild Turkeys called Maroudi ; 

they feed on the ripe fruits of the forest, and 
^ T ^? owise ar ^ found in all directions in these extensive 

or Mocco. 

wilds. You will admire the horned screamer 
as a stately and majestic bird : he is almost the size of 
the turkey cock ; on his head is a long slender horn, 
and each wing is armed with a strong, sharp, triangular 
spur, an inch long. 

Sometimes you will fall in with flocks of 

Flocks of . , ., _ TT 

Waracabas or two or three hundred W aracabas, or Irum- 
iimipeters. ca lled so from the singular noise 

they produce. Their breast is adorned with beautiful 
changing blue and purple feathers ; their head and 
neck like velvet ; their wings and back grey, and 
belly black. They run with great swiftness, and when 
domesticated, attend their master in his walks, with as 
much apparent affection as his dog. They have no 
spurs, but still, such is their high spirit and activity, 
that they browbeat every dunghill fowl in the yard, 
and force the Guinea birds, dogs, and turkeys to own 
their superiority. 

If, kind and gentle reader, thou shouldst ever visit 
these regions with an intention to examine their pro- 
ductions, perhaps the few observations contained in 
these wanderings may be of service to thee ; excuse 
their brevity : more could have been written, and each 
bird more particularly described, but it would have 
been pressing too hard upon thy time and patience. 

Soon after arriving in these parts, thou wilt find that 
the species here enumerated are only as a handful from 
a well-stored granary. Nothing has been said of the 
eagles, the falcons, the hawks, and shrikes ; nothing of 
the different species of vultures, the king of which is 



124 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 

very handsome, and seems to be the only bird which 
claims regal honours from a surrounding tribe. It is a 
fact beyond all dispute, that when the scent of carrion 
has drawn together hundreds of the common vultures, 
they all retire from the carcase as soon as the king of 
the vultures makes his appearance. When his majesty 
has satisfied the cravings of his royal stomach with the 
choicest bits from the most stinking and corrupted parts, 
he generally retires to a neighbouring tree, and then the 
common vultures return in crowds to gobble down his 
leavings. The Indians, as well as the Whites, have 
observed this ; for when one of them, who has learned 
a little English, sees the king, and wishes you to have 
a proper notion of the bird, he says, "There is the 
governor of the carrion crows." 

JTow, the Indians have never heard of a personage in 
Demerara higher than that of governor ; and the colo- 
nists, through a common mistake, call the vultures 
carrion crows. Hence the Indian, in order to express 
the dominion of this bird over the common vultures, 
tells you he is governor of the carrion crows. The 
Spaniards have also observed it, for, through all the 
Spanish Main, he is called Eey de Zamuros, king of the 
vultures. The many species of owls, too, have not been 
noticed; and no mention made of the columbine tribe. 
The prodigious variety of water fowl, on the sea-shore, 
has been but barely hinted at. 

There, and on the borders and surface of the inland 
waters, in the marshes and creeks, besides the flamingos, 
scarlet curlew, and spoonbills, already mentioned, will 
be found ; greenish-brown curlews, sand-pipers, rails, 
coots, gulls, pelicans, jabirus, nandapoas, crabiers, snipes, 
plovers, ducks, geese, cranes, and anhingas ; most of 



I 



SECOND JOURNEY. 125 

them in vast abundance ; some frequenting only the 
sea- coast, others only the interior, according to their 
different natures; all worthy the attention of the 
naturalist, all worthy of a place in the cabinet of the 
curious. 

Should thy comprehensive genius not confine itself to 
birds alone, grand is the appearance of other objects all 
around. Thou art in a land rich in botany and mine- 
ralogy, rich in zoology and entomology. Animation will 
glow in thy looks, and exercise will brace thy frame in 
vigour. The very time of thy absence from the tables 
of heterogeneous luxury will be profitable to thy 
stomach, perhaps already sorely drenched with Londo- 
Parisian sauces, and a new stock of health will bring 
thee an appetite to relish the wholesome food of the 
chase. Xever-failing Sleep will wait on thee at the time 
she comes to soothe the rest of animated nature ; and, 
ere the sun's rays appear in the horizon, thou wilt 
spring from thy hammock fresh as April lark. Be 
convinced also, that the dangers and difficulties which 
are generally supposed to accompany the traveller 
in his journey through distant regions, are not half 
so numerous or dreadful as they are commonly thought 
to be. 

Dangers to The youth who incautiously reels into the 
ed'To^reai^bby of Drury Lane, after leaving the table 

but imaginary. sacre( J ^0 fa e g Q( J Q f w i ne? i s exposed to 

more certain ruin, sickness, and decay, than he who 
wanders a whole year in the wilds of Demerara. But 
this will never be believed ; because the disasters arising 
from dissipation are so common and frequent in civilized 
life, that man becomes quite habituated to them ; and 
sees daily victims sink into the tomb long before their 



126 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 

time, without ever once taking alarm at the causes 
which precipitated them headlong into it. 

But the dangers which a traveller exposes himself to 
in foreign parts are novel, out-of-the-way things to a 
man at home. The remotest apprehension of meeting a 
tremendous tiger, of being carried off by a flying dragon, 
or having his bones picked by a famished cannibal ; oh, 
that makes him shudder ! It sounds in his ears like the 
bursting of a bomb-shell. Thank Heaven, he is safe by 
his own fire-side f 

Prudence and resolution ought to be the traveller's 
constant companions. The first will cause him to avoid 
a number of snares which he will find in the path as he 
journeys on ; and the second will always lend a hand to 
assist him if he has unavoidably got entangled in them. 
The little distinctions which have been shown him at 
his own home, ought to be forgotten when he travels 
over the world at large ; for strangers know nothing of 
his former merits, and it is necessary that they should 
witness them before they pay him the tribute which he 
was wont to receive within his own doors. Thus, to be 
kind and affable to those we meet, to mix in their 
amusements, to pay a compliment or two to their man- 
ners and customs, to respect their elders, to give a little 
to their distressed and needy, and to feel, as it were, at 
home amongst them, is the sure way to enable you to 
pass merrily on, and to find other comforts as sweet and 
palatable as those which you were accustomed to partake 
of amongst your friends and acquaintance in your own 
native land. We will now ascend in fancy on Icarian 
wing, and take a vieAv of Guiana in general. See an 
immense plain ! betwixt two of the largest rivers in the 
world, level as a bowling green, save at Cayenne, and 



SECOND JOUKNEY. 



127 



covered with trees along the coast quite to the Atlantic 
wave, except where the plantations make a little 
vacancy amongst the foliage. 

Though nearly in the centre of the torrid zone, the 
sun's rays are not so intolerable as might be imagined, 
on account of the perpetual verdure and refreshing 
north-east breeze. See what numbers of broad and rapid 
rivers intersect it in their journey to the ocean, and that 
not a stone or a pebble is to be found on their banks, or 
in any part of the country, till your eye catches the hills 
in the interior. How beautiful and magnificent are the 
lakes in the heart of the forests, and how charming the 
forests themselves, for miles after miles on each side of 
the rivers ! How extensive appear the savannas or 
natural meadows, teeming with innumerable herds of 
cattle where the Portuguese and Spaniards are settled, 
but desert as Saara, where the English and Dutch claim 
dominion ! How gradually the face of the country rises ! 
See the sand-hills all clothed in wood first emerging 
from the level, then hills a little higher, rugged with 
bold and craggy rocks, peeping out from amongst the 
most luxuriant timber. Then come plains, and dells, 
and far-extending valleys, arrayed in richest foliage ; 
and beyond them, mountains piled on mountains, some 
bearing prodigious forests, others of bleak and barren 
aspect. Thus your eye wanders on, over scenes of 
varied loveliness and grandeur, till it rests on the 
stupendous pinnacles of the long-continued Cordilleras 
de los Andes, which rise in towering majesty, and com- 
mand all America. 

How fertile must the lowlands be, from the accumu- 
lation of fallen leaves and trees for centuries ! How 
propitious the swamps and slimy beds of the rivers, 



128 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



heated by a downward sun, to the amazing growth of 
alligators, serpents, and innumerable insects ! How T 
inviting the forests to the feathered tribes, where you 
see buds, blossoms, green and ripe fruit, full-grown and 
fading leaves, all on the same tree ! How secure the 
wild beasts may rove in endless mazes ! Perhaps those 
mountains too, which appear so bleak and naked, as if 
quite neglected, are, like Potosi, full of precious metals. 

Let us now r return the pinions we bor- 

Conclusion. p 1 t . _ 

rowed irom Icarus y and prepare to bid 
farewell to the wilds. The time allotted to these wander- 
ings is drawing fast to a close. Every day for the last 
six months has been employed in paying close attention 
to natural history in the forests of Demerara. Above 
two hundred specimens of the finest birds have been 
collected, and a pretty just knowledge formed of their 
haunts and economy. Prom the time of leaving Eng- 
land, in March 1816, to the present day, nothing has 
intervened to arrest a fine flow of health, saving a 
quartan ague, which did not tarry, but fled as suddenly 
as it appeared. 

And now I take leave of thee, kind and gentle reader. 
The new r mode of preserving birds, heretofore promised 
thee, shall not be forgotten. The plan is already formed 
in imagination, and can „ be penned down during the 
passage across the Atlantic. If the few remarks in 
these wanderings shall have any weight in inciting thee 
to sally forth, and explore the vast and well-stored 
regions of Demerara, I have gained my end. Adieu ! 

Charles Waterton. 



April 6th, 1817. 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



129 



THIRD JOUENEY. 



" Desertosque videre locos, litt usque relictum.' 



• Gentle reader, after staying a few months in Eng- 
land, I strayed across the Alps and the Apennines, and 
returned home, but could not tarry. Guiana still 
whispered in my ear, and seemed to invite me once 
more to wander through her distant forests. 

Shouldst thou have a leisure hour to read what 
follows, I pray thee pardon the frequent use of that 
unwelcome monosyllable I. It could not well be 
avoided, as will be seen in the sequel. In February, 
1820, I sailed from the Clyde, on board the Glenbervie, 
a fine West-Indiaman. She was driven to the north- 
west of Ireland, and had to contend with a foul and 
wintry wind for above a fortnight. At last it changed, 
and we had a pleasant passage across the Atlantic. 

Yellow fever ^ a( ^ an( ^ niournful was the story we heard 
at Demerara. on en t e ring the river Demerara. The yellow 
fever had swept off numbers of the old inhabitants, 
and the mortal remains of many a new comer were daily 
passing down the streets, in slow and mute procession 
to their last resting-place. 

Residence at After staying a few days in the town, I 
Mibm creek. wen ^ U p the Demerara to the former habita- 
tion of my worthy friend, Mr. Edmonstone, in Mibiri 
creek. 



130 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



The house had been abandoned for some years. On 
arriving at the hill, the remembrance of scenes long past 
and gone, naturally broke in upon the mind. All was 
changed ; the house was in ruins, and gradually sinking 
under the influence of the sun and rain ; the roof had 
nearly fallen in ; and the room, where once governors 
and generals had caroused, was now dismantled, and 
tenanted by the vampire. You would have said, 

" 'Tis now the vampire's bleak abode, 
Tis now the apartment of the toad ; 
'Tis here the painful Chegoe feeds, 
'Tis here the dire Labarri breeds, 
Conceal'd in ruins, moss, and weeds." 

On the outside of the house, nature had nearly re- 
assumed her ancient right : a few straggling fruit-trees 
were still discernible amid the varied hue of the near 
approaching forest ; they seemed like strangers lost, and 
bewildered, and unpitied, in a foreign land, destined to 
linger a little longer, and then sink down for ever. 

I hired some negroes from a woodcutter 

Converted into . 

the author's in another creek to repair the roof; and 

dwelling. 

then the house, or at least what remained of 
it, became head-quarters for natural history. The frogs, 
and here and there a snake, received that attention 
which the weak in this world generally experience 
from the strong, and which the law commonly denomi- 
nates an ejectment. But here, neither the frogs nor 
serpents were ill-treated ; they sallied forth, without 
bullet or rebuke, to choose their place of residence; 
the world was all before them. The owls went away 
of their own accord, preferring to retire to a hollow 
tree rather than to associate with their new landlord. 
The bats and vampires stayed with me, and went in and 
out as usual. 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



131 



It was upon this hill in former days that I first tried 
to teach John, the black slave of my friend Mr. Edmon- 
stone, the proper way to do birds. But John had poor 
abilities, and it required much time and patience to 
drive anything into him. Some years after this his 
master took him to Scotland, where, becoming free, 
John left him, and got employed in the Glasgow, 
and then the Edinburgh museum. Mr. Eobert Edmon- 
stone, nephew to the above gentleman, had a fine 
mulatto, capable of learning anything. He requested 
me to teach him the art. I did so. He was docile 
and active, and was with me all the time in the forest ; 
I left him there to keep up this new art of preserving 
birds, and to communicate it to others. Here then I 
fixed my head-quarters, in the ruins of this once gay 
and hospitable house. Close by, in a little hut, which, 
in times long past, had served for a store to keep pro- 
visions in, there lived a coloured man and his wife, by 
name Backer. Many a kind turn they did to me ; and 
I was more than once a service to them and their 
children, by bringing to their relief, in time of sickness, 
what little knowledge I had acquired of medicine. 

I would here, gentle reader, wish to draw thy atten- 
Raimentand ^ 0I] > f° r a ^ ew minutes, to physic, raiment, 
diet * and diet. Should st thou ever wander 

through these remote and dreary wilds, forget not to 
carry with thee bark, laudanum, calomel, and jalap, and 
the lancet. There are no druggist shops here, nor sons 
of Galen to apply to in time of need. I never go en- 
cumbered with many clothes. A thin flannel waistcoat 
under a check shirt, a pair of trowsers, and a hat, were 
all my wardrobe ; shoes and stockings I seldom had on. 
In dry weather they would have irritated the feet, and 

k 2 



132 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



retarded me in the chase of wild beasts; and in the 
rainy season they would have kept me in a perpetual 
state of damp and moisture. I eat moderately, and 
never drink wine, spirits, or fermented liquors in any 
climate. This abstemiousness has ever proved a faith- 
ful friend ; it carried me triumphant through the epi- 
demia at Malaga, where death made such havoc about 
the beginning of the present century ; and it has since 
befriended me in many a fit of sickness, brought on by 
exposure to the noon-day sun, to the dews of night, to 
the pelting shower, and unwholesome food. 

Perhaps it will be as well, here, to mention a fever 
which came on, and the treatment of it ; it may pos- 
sibly be of use to thee, shouldst thou turn wanderer in 
the tropics : a word or two also of a wound I got in 
the forest, and then we will say no more of the little 
accidents which sometimes occur, and attend solely to 
natural history. We shall have an opportunity of see- 
ing the wild animals in their native haunts, undisturbed 
and unbroken in upon by man. We shall have time 
and leisure to look more closely at them, and probably 
rectify some errors which, for want of proper informa- 
tion, or a near observance, have crept into their several 
histories. 

It was in the month ^of June, when the sun was 
Severe at- within a few days of Cancer, that I had a 
taek of fever. severe attack of fever. There had been a 
deluge of rain, accompanied with tremendous thunder 
and lightning, and very little sun. Nothing could 
exceed the dampness of the atmosphere. For two or 
three days I had been in a kind of twilight state of 
health, neither ill nor what you may call well; I 
yawned and felt weary without exercise, and my sleep 



THIRD JOURNEY. 133 

was merely slumber. This was the time to have taken 
medicine ; but I neglected to do so, though I had just 
been reading, " navis referent in mare te novi fluetus, 
quid agis ? fortiter occupa portum." I awoke at 
midnight; a cruel headache, thirst, and pain in the 
small of the back, informed me what the case was. 
Had Chiron himself been present, he could not have 
told me more distinctly that I was going to have a tight 
brush of it, and that I ought to meet it with becoming 
fortitude. I dozed, and woke, and startled, and then 
dozed again, and suddenly awoke, thinking I was 
'falling down a precipice. 

The return of the bats to their diurnal retreat, which 
was in the thatch above my hammock, informed me 
that the sun was now fast approaching to the eastern 
horizon. I arose, in languor and in pain, the pulse at 
one hundred and twenty. I took ten grains of calomel 
and a scruple of jalap, and drank during the day large 
draughts of tea, weak and warm. The physic did its 
duty ; but there was no remission of fever or headache, 
though the pain of the back was less acute. I was 
saved the trouble of keeping the room cool, as the wind 
beat in at every quarter. 

At five in the evening the pulse had risen to one 
hundred and thirty, and the headache almost insup- 
portable, especially on looking to the right or left. I 
now opened a vein, and made a large orifice, to allow 
the blood to rush out rapidly ; I closed it after losing 
sixteen ounces. I then steeped my feet in warm water, 
and got into the hammock. After bleeding, the pulse 
fell to ninety, and the head was much relieved ; but 
during the night, which was very restless, the pulse 
rose again to one hundred and twenty, and at times the 



134 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



headache was distressing. I relieved the headache from 
time to time, by applying cold water to the temples, and 
holding a wet handkerchief there. The next morning 
the fever ran very high, and I took five more grains of 
calomel and ten of jalap, determined, whatever might 
be the case, this should be the last dose of calomel. 
About two o'clock in the afternoon the fever remitted, 
and a copious perspiration came on ; there was no more 
headache, nor thirst, nor pain in the back, and the 
following night was comparatively a good one. The 
next morning I swallowed a large dose of castor oil : it 
was genuine, for Louisa Backer had made it from the 
seeds of the trees which grew near the door. I was 
now entirely free from all symptoms of fever, or appre- 
hensions of a return ; and the morning after I began to 
take bark, and continued it for a fortnight. This put 
all to rights. 

Meets with The story of the wound I got in the forest, 

an accident. an( j ^ mo( J e Q f cnre? are yer y short. 1 had 

pursued a red-headed woodpecker for above a mile in the 
forest, without being able to get a shot at it. Thinking 
more of the woodpecker, as I ran along, than of the 
way before me, I trod upon a little hardwood stump, 
which was just about an inch or so above the ground ; 
it entered the hollow part of my foot, making a deep 
and lacerated wound there. It had brought me to the 
ground, and there I lay till a transitory fit of sickness 
went off. I allowed it to bleed freely, and on reaching 
head-quarters, washed it well and probed it, to feel if 
any foreign body was left within it. Being satisfied 
that there was none, I brought the edges of the wound 
together, and then put a piece of lint on it, and over 
that a very large poultice, which was changed morning, 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



135 



noon, and night. Luckily, Backer had a cow or two 
upon the hill ; now, as heat and moisture are the two 
principal virtues of a poultice, nothing could produce 
those two qualities better than fresh cow-dung boiled : 
had there been no* cows there, I could have made it 
with boiled grass and leaves. I now took entirely to 
the hammock, placing the foot higher than the knee ; 
this prevented it from throbbing, and was, indeed, the 
only position in which I could be at ease. When the 
inflammation was completely subdued, I applied a wet 
cloth to the wound, and every now and then steeped 
the foot in cold water during the day, and at night 
again applied a poultice. The wound was now healing 
fast, and in three weeks from the time of the accident 
nothing but a scar remained ; so that I again sallied 
forth sound and joyful, and said to myself — 

" I, pedes quo te rapiunt et aurae 
Dum favet sol, et locus, i secuudo 
Oinine, et conto latebras, ut olim, 

Rumpe ferarum." 

Now, this contus was a tough light pole, eight feet long, 
on the end of which was fixed an old bayonet. I never 
went into the canoe without it ; it was of great use in 
starting the beasts and snakes out of the hollow trees, 
and in case of need, was an excellent defence. 

In 1819, I had the last conversation with 

Last conver- 

sation with Sir Sir Joseph Banks. I saw with sorrow that 
' death was going to rob us of him. We talked 
much of the present mode adopted by all museums in 
stuffing quadrupeds, and condemned it as being very 
imperfect : still we could not find out a better way ; and 
at last concluded, that the lips and nose ought to be cut 
off, and replaced with wax ; it being impossible to make 
those parts appear like life, as they shrink to nothing, and 



136 



"WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



render the stuffed specimens in the different museums 
horrible to look at. The defects in the legs and feet 
would not be quite so glaring, being covered with hair. 

gt ffi I had paid great attention to this subject 

birds and 5 for above fourteen years ; still it would not 
do : however, one night, while I was lying 
in the hammock, and harping on the string on which 
hung all my solicitude, I hit upon the proper mode 
by inference ; it appeared clear to me that it was the 
only true way of going to work, and ere I closed my 
eyes in sleep, I was able to prove to myself that there 
could not be any other way that would answer. I 
tried it the next day, and succeeded according to ex- 
pectation. 

Ey means of this process, which is very simple, we 
can now give every feature back again to the animal's 
face, after it has been skinned; and when necessary, 
stamp grief, or pain, or pleasure, or rage, or mildness 
upon it. But more of this hereafter. 
' » Let us now turn our attention to the 

Sloth, whose native haunts have hitherto 
been so little known, and probably little looked into. 
Those who have written on this singular animal, have 
remarked that he is in a perpetual state of pain, that 
he is proverbially slow in, his movements, that he is a 
prisoner in space, and that as soon as he has consumed 
all the leaves of the tree upon which he had mounted, 
he rolls himself up in the form of a ball, and then falls 
to the ground. This is not the case. 

If the naturalists who have written the history of 
the sloth had gone into the wilds, in order to examine 
his haunts and economy, they would not have drawn 
the foregoing conclusions ; they would have learned, 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



137 



that though all other quadrupeds may be described 
while resting upon the ground, the sloth is an exception 
to this rule, and that his history must be written while 
he is in the tree. 

This singular animal is destined by nature to be pro- 
duced, to live, and to die in the trees ; and to do justice 
to him, naturalists must examine him in this his upper 
element. He is a scarce and solitary animal, and being 
good food, he is never allowed to escape. He inhabits 
remote and gloomy forests, where snakes take 

Lives in . . 

gloomy fo* up their abode, and where cruelly stinging 
ants and scorpions, and swamps, and innu- 
merable thorny shrubs and bushes, obstruct the steps 
of civilized man. "Were you to draw your own con- 
clusions from the descriptions which have been given 
of the sloth, you would probably suspect, that no 
naturalist has actually gone into the wilds with the 
fixed determination to find him out and examine his 
haunts, and see whether nature has committed any 
blunder, in the formation of this extraordinary creature, 
which appears to us so forlorn and miserable, so ill put 
together, and so totally unfit to enjoy the blessings 
which have been so bountifully given to the rest of 
animated nature; for, as it has formerly been remarked, 
he has no soles to his feet, ?md he is evidently ill at 
ease when he tries to move on the ground, and it is 
then that he looks up in your face with a countenance 
that says, "Have pity on me, for I am in pain and 
sorrow." 

It mostly happens that Indians and Negroes are the 
people who catch the sloth, and bring it to the white 
man : hence it may be conjectured that the erroneous 
accounts we have hitherto had of the sloth, have not 



138 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



been penned down with the slightest intention to mis- 
lead the reader, or give him an exaggerated history, but 
that these errors have naturally arisen by examining 
the sloth in those places where nature t never intended 
that he should be exhibited. 

However, we are now in his own domain. Man but 
little frequents these thick and noble forests, which ex- 
tend far and wide on every side of us. This, then, is 
the proper place to go in quest of the sloth. We will 
first take a near view of him. By obtaining a know- 
Anatomy of ledge °f his anatomy, we shall be enabled 
the sloth. ^ Q accolln t for his movements hereafter, when 
we see him in his proper haunts. His fore-legs, or, 
more correctly speaking, his arms, are apparently much 
too long, while his hind-legs are very short, and look 
as if they could be bent almost to the shape of a cork- 
screw. Both the fore and hind-legs, by their form, 
and by the manner in which they are joined to the 
body, are quite incapacitated from acting in a perpen- 
dicular direction, or in supporting it on the earth as the 
bodies of other quadrupeds are supported, by their legs. 
Hence, when you place him on the floor, his belly 
touches the ground. ]STow, granted that he supported 
himself on his legs like other animals, nevertheless he 
would be in pain, for he has no soles to his feet, and 
his claws are very sharp and long, and curved; so that, 
were his body supported by his feet, it would be by 
their extremities, just as your body would be, were 
you to throw yourself on all fours, and try to support 
it on the ends of your toes and fingers — a trying 
position. Were the floor of glass, or of a polished 
surface, the sloth would actually be quite stationary ; 
bat as the ground is generally rough, with little pro- 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



139 



tuberances upon it, such, as stones, or roots of grass, &c, 
this just suits the sloth, and he moves his fore-legs in 
all directions, in order to find something to lay hold of ; 
and when he has succeeded, he pulls himself forward, 
and is thus enabled to travel onwards, but at the same 
time in so tardy and awkward a manner, as to acquire 
him the name of sloth. 

Indeed his looks and his gestures evidently betray 
his uncomfortable situation ; and as a ,sigh every now 
and then escapes him, we may be entitled to conclude 
that he is actually in pain. 

Some years ago I kept a sloth in my room for several 
months. I often took him out of the house and placed 
him upon the ground, in order to have an opportunity 
of observing his motions. If the ground were rough, 
he would pull himself forwards, by means of his fore- 
legs, at a pretty good pace ; and he invariably imme- 
diately shaped his course towards the nearest tree : but 
if I put him upon a smooth and well-trodden part of 
the road, he appeared to be in trouble and distress, 
His favourite abode was the back of a chair ; and after 
getting all his legs in a line upon the topmost part of 
it, he would hang there for hours together, and often, 
with a low and inward cry, would seem to invite me to 
take notice of him. 

The sloth, in its wild state, spends its whole life in 
trees, and never leaves them but through force, or by 
accident. An all-ruling Providence has ordered man to 
tread on the surface of the earth, the eagle to soar in 
the expanse of the skies, and the monkey and squirrel 
to inhabit the trees : still these may change their relative 
situations without feeling much inconvenience : but the 
sloth is doomed to spend his whole life in the trees; and 



140 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



what is more extraordinary, not upon the branches, like 
the squirrel and the monkey, but under them. He 
moves suspended from the branch, he rests suspended 
from it, and he sleeps suspended from it. To enable 
him to do this, he must have a very different formation 
from that of any other known quadruped. 

Hence, his seemingly bungled conformation is at once 
accounted for; and in lieu of the sloth leading a painful 
life, and entailing a melancholy and miserable existence 
on its progeny, it is but fair to surmise that it just 
enjoys life as much as any other animal, and that its 
extraordinary formation and singular habits are but 
further proofs to engage us to admire the wonderful 
works of Omnipotence. 

It must be observed, that the sloth does not hang 
head downwards like the vampire. When asleep, he 
supports himself from a branch parallel to the earth. 
He first seizes the branch with one arm, and then with 
the other ; and after that, brings up both his legs, one 
by one, to the same branch, so that all four are in 
a line : he seems perfectly at rest in this position. 
Now, had he a tail, he would be at a loss to know what 
to do with it in this position : were he to draw it up 
within his legs, it would interfere with them ; and were 
he to let it hang down, it, would become the sport of 
the winds. Thus his deficiency of tail is a benefit to 
him; it is merely an apology for a tail, scarcely ex- 
ceeding an inch and a half in length. 

I observed, when he was climbing, he never used his 
arms both together, but first one and then the other, 
and so on alternately. There is a singularity in his 
hair, different from that of all other animals, and, I 
believe, hitherto unnoticed by naturalists ; his hair is 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



141 



thick and coarse at the extremity, and gradually tapers 
to the root, where it becomes fine as a spider's web. 
His fur has so much the hue of the moss which grows 
on the branches of the trees, that it is very difficult to 
make him out when he is at rest. 

The male of the three-toed sloth has a longitudinal 
bar of very fine black hair on his back, rather lower 
than the shoulder-blades ; on each side of this black bar 
there is a space of yellow hair, equally fine ; it has the 
appearance of being pressed into the body, and looks 
exactly as if it had been singed. If we examine the 
anatomy of his fore-legs, we shall immediately perceive, 
by their firm and muscular texture, how very capable 
they are of supporting the pendent weight of his body, 
both in climbing and at rest ; and, instead of pronounc- 
ing them a bungled composition, as a celebrated natu- 
ralist has done, we shall consider them as remarkably 
well calculated to perform their extraordinary functions. 

As the sloth is an inhabitant of forests within the 
tropics, where the trees touch each other in the greatest 
profusion, there seems to be no reason why he should 
confine himself to one tree alone for food, and entirely 
strip it of its leaves. During the many years I have 
ranged the forests, I have never seen a tree in such a 
state of nudity ; indeed, I would hazard a conjecture, 
that, by the time the animal had finished the last of the 
old leaves, there would be a new crop on the part of 
the tree he had stripped first, ready for him to begin 
again, so quick is the process of vegetation in these 
countries. 

There is a saying amongst the Indians, that when 
the wind blows, the sloth begins to travel. In calm 
weather he remains tranquil, probably not liking to 



142 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



cling to the brittle extremity of the branches, lest they 
should break with hirn in passing from one tree to 
another ; but, as soon as the wind rises, the branches 
of the neighbouring trees become interwoven, and then 
the sloth seizes hold of them, and pursues his journey 
in. safety. There is seldom an entire day of calm in 
these forests. The 'trade- wind generally sets in about 
ten o'clock in the morning, and thus the sloth may set 
off after breakfast, and get a considerable way before 
dinner. He travels at a good round pace ; and were 
you to see him pass from tree to tree, as I have done, 
you would never think of calling him a sloth. 

Thus, it would appear that the different histories we 
have of this quadruped are erroneous on two accounts : 
first, that the writers of them, deterred by difficulties 
and local annoyances, have not paid sufficient attention 
to him in his native haunts ; and secondly, they have 
described hini in a situation in which he was never 
intended by nature to cut a figure ; I mean on the 
ground. The sloth is as much at a loss to proceed on 
his journey upon a smooth and level floor, as a man 
would be who had to walk a mile in stilts upon a line 
of feather beds. 

One day, as we were crossing the Essequibo, I saw 
two . a large two-toed - sloth on the ground upon 
toed sloth. the bank . how he had gQt ^ere nobody 

could tell : the Indian said he had never surprised a 
sloth in such a situation before : he would hardly have 
come there to drink, for both above and below the 
place, the branches of the trees touched the water, and 
afforded him an easy and safe access to it. Ee this as it 
may, though the trees were not above twenty yards 
from him, he could not make his way through the sand 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



143 



time enough to escape before we landed. As soon as 
we got up to liini lie threw himself upon his back, and 
defended himself in gallant style with his fore-legs. 
" Come, poor fellow," said I to him, " if thou hast got 
into a hobble to-day, thou shalt not suffer for it : Til take 
no advantage of thee in misfortune ; the forest is large 
enough both for thee and me to rove in : go thy ways 
up above, and enjoy thyself in these endless wilds : it is 
more than probable thou wilt never have another inter- 
view with man. So fare thee well." On saying this, I 
took a long stick which was lying there, held it for him 
to hook on, and then conveyed him to a high and 
stately mora. He ascended with wonderful rapidity, 
and in about a minute he was almost at the top of the 
tree. He now went off in a side direction, and caught 
hold of the branch of a neighbouring tree ; he then 
proceeded towards the heart of the forest. I stood 
looking on, lost in amazement at his singular mode of 
progress. I followed him with my eye till the inter- 
vening branches closed in betwixt us ; and then I lost 
sight for ever of the two-toed sloth. I was going to 
add, that I never saw a sloth take to his heels in such 
earnest ; but the expression will not do, for the sloth 
has no heels. 

That which naturalists have advanced of his being so 
tenacious of life, is perfectly true. I saw the heart of 
one beat for half an hour after it was taken out of the 
body. The wourali poison seems to be the only thing 
that will kill it quickly. On reference to a former part 
of these Wanderings, it will be seen that a poisoned 
arrow killed the sloth in about ten minutes. 

So much for this harmless, unoffending animal. He 
holds a conspicuous place in the catalogue of the animals 



144 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



of the new world. Though naturalists have made no 
mention of what follows, still it is not less true on that 
account. The sloth is the only quadruped known 
which spends its whole life from the branch of a tree, 
suspended by his feet. I have paid uncommon attention 
to him in his native haunts. The monkey and squirrel 
will seize a branch with their fore-feet, and pull them- 
selves up, and rest or run upon it ; but the sloth, after 
seizing it, still remains suspended, and suspended moves 
along under the branch, till he can lay hold of another. 
Whenever I have seen him in his native woods, whether 
at rest, or asleep, or on his travels, I have always ob- 
served that he was suspended from the branch of a tree. 
When his form and anatomy are attentively considered, 
it will appear evident that the sloth cannot be at ease 
in any situation, where his body is higher, or above his 
feet. We will now take our leave of him. 

In the far-extending wilds of Guiana, the 
traveller will be astonished at the immense 
quantity of ants which he perceives on the ground and 
in the trees. They have nests in the branches, four or 
five times as large as that of the rook ; and they have 
a covered way from them to the ground. In this 
covered way thousands are perpetually passing and 
repassing ; and if you destroy part of it, they turn to, 
and immediately repair it. 

Other species of ants again have no covered way ; but 
travel, exposed to view, upon the surface of the earth. 
You will sometimes see a string of these ants a mile 
long, each carrying hi its mouth to its nest a green leaf, 
the size of a sixpence. It is wonderful to observe the 
order in which they move, and with what pains and 
labour they surmount the obstructions of the path. 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



145 



Three species The ants have their enemies, as well as 
of Ant-bears. ^ e res ^ f animated nature. Amongst the 
foremost of these stand the three species of Ant-bears. 
The smallest is not much larger than a rat ; the next 
is nearly the size of a fox ; and the third a stout and 
powerful animal, measuring about six feet from the 
snout to the end of the tail. He is the most inoffensive 
of all animals, and never injures the property of man. 
He is chiefly found in the inmost recesses of the forest, 
and seems partial to the low and swampy parts near 
creeks, where the troely-tree grows. There he goes up 
and down in quest of ants, of which there is never the 
least scarcity; so that he soon obtains a sufficient 
supply of food, with very little trouble. He cannot 
travel fast ; man is superior to him in speed. With- 
out swiftness to enable him to escape from his enemies, 
without teeth, the possession of which would assist him 
in self-defence, and without the power of burrowing in 
the ground, by which he might conceal himself from 
his pursuers, he still is capable of ranging through 
these wilds in perfect safety ; nor does he fear the fatal 
pressure of the serpent's fold, or the teeth of the 
famished jaguar. Mature has formed his fore-legs 
wonderfully thick, and strong, and muscular, and 
armed his feet with three tremendous sharp and 
crooked claws. Whenever he seizes an animal with 
these formidable weapons, he hugs it olose to his body, 
and keeps it there till it dies through pressure, or 
through want of food. ~Nor does the ant-bear, in the 
meantime, suffer much from loss of aliment, as it is a 
well-known fact, that he can go longer without food 
than, perhaps, any other animal, excepting the land- 
tortoise. His skin is of a texture that perfectly resists 

L 



146 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



the bite of a dog; his hinder parts are protected by 
thick and shaggy hair, while his immense tail is large 
enough to cover his whole body. 

The Indians have a great dread of coming in contact 
with the ant-bear ; and after disabling him in the chase, 
never think of approaching him till he be quite dead. 
It is perhaps on account of this caution, that naturalists 
have never yet given to the world a true and correct 
drawing of this singular animal, or described the pecu- 
liar position of his fore-feet when he walks or stands. 
If, in taking a drawing from a dead ant-bear, you judge 
of the position in which he stands from that of all other 
terrestrial animals, the sloth excepted, you will be in 
error. Examine only a figure of this animal in books 
of natural history, or inspect a stuffed specimen in the 
best museums, and you will see that the fore-claws are 
just in the same forward attitude as those of a dog, or 
a common bear, when he walks or stands. Eut this is 
a distorted and unnatural position ; and in life, would 
be a painful and intolerable attitude for the ant-bear. 
The length and curve of his claws cannot admit of such 
a position. When he walks or stands, his feet have 
somewhat the appearance of a club-hand. He goes 
entirely on the outer side of his fore-feet, which are 
quite bent inwards ; the -claws collected into a point, 
and going under the foot. In this position he is quite 
at ease \ while his long claws are disposed of in a 
manner to render them harmless to him, and are pre- 
vented from becoming dull and worn, like those of the 
dog, which would inevitably be the case, did thei 
points come in actual contact with the ground ; for his 
claws have not that retractile power which is given 
animals of the feline species, by which they are enabled 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



147 



to preserve the sharpness of their claws on the most 
flinty path. A slight inspection of the fore-feet of the 
ant-bear will immediately convince you of the mistake 
artists and naturalists have fallen into, by putting his 
fore-feet in the same position as those of other quad- 
rupeds ; for you will perceive that the whole outer side 
of his foot is not only deprived of hair, but is hard 
and callous — proof positive of its being in perpetual 
contact with the ground. 'Now, on the contrary, the 
inner side of the bottom of his foot is soft and rather 
hairy. 

Peculiarity There is another singularity in the 
lVtL an lut myanatom y of tne ant-bear, I believe, as yet 
bear. unnoticed in the page of natural history. 

He has two very large glands situated below the root 
of the tongue. From these is emitted a glutinous 
liquid, with which his long tongue is lubricated when 
he puts it into the ants' nests. These glands are of the 
same substance as those found in the lower jaw of the 
woodpecker. The secretion from them, when wet, is 
very clammy and adhesive, but on being dried it loses 
these qualities, and you can pulverize it betwixt your 
finger and thumb ; so that, in dissection, if any of it 
has got upon the fur of the animal, or the feathers of 
the bird, allow it to dry there, and then it may be 
removed without leaving the least stain behind. 

The ant-bear is a pacific animal. He is never the 
first to begin the attack. His motto may be, " !N"oli me 
tangere." As his habits and his haunts differ materially 
from those of every other animal in the forest, their 
interests never clash, and thus he might live to a good 
old age, and die at last in peace, were it not that his 
flesh is good food. On this account, the Indian wages 

l2 



148 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 

perpetual war against him, and as he cannot escape by 
flight, he falls an easy prey to the poisoned arrow, 
shot from the Indian's how at a distance. If ever he 
he closely attacked by dogs, he immediately throws 
himself on his back, and if he be fortunate enough to 
catch hold of his enemy with his tremendous claws, the 
invader is sure to pay for his rashness with the loss 
of life. 

We will now take a view of the Yampire. As there 
was a free entrance and exit to the vampire, 
'in the loft where I slept, I had many a fine 
opportunity of paying attention to this nocturnal sur- 
geon. He does not always live on blood. When the 
moon shone bright, and the fruit of the banana-tree 
was ripe, I could see him approach and eat it. He 
would also bring into the loft, from the forest, a green 
round fruit, something like the wild guava, and about 
the size of a nutmeg. There was something also, in 
the blossom of the sawarri nut-tree, which was grateful 
to him ; for on coming up Waratilla creek, in a moon- 
light night, I saw several vampires fluttering round the 
top of the sawarri-tree, and every now and then the 
blossoms, which they had broken off, fell into the 
water. They certainly did not drop off naturally, for 
on examining several of them, they appeared quite 
fresh and blooming. So I concluded the vampires 
pulled them from the tree, either to get at the incipient 
fruit, or to catch the insects which often take up their 
abode in flowers. 

The vampire, in general, measures about twenty-six 
inches from wing to wing extended, though I once 
killed one which measured thirty-two inches. He fre- 
quents old abandoned houses and hollow trees ; and 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



149 



sometimes a cluster of them may be seen in the forest 
hanging head downwards from the branch of a tree. 

Goldsmith seems to have been aware that the vam- 
pire hangs in clusters ; for in the " Deserted Village," 
speaking of America, he says, — 

" And matted woods, where birds forget to sing, 
But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling." 

The vampire has a curious membrane, which rises 
from the nose, and gives it a very singular appearance. 
It has been remarked before, that there are two species 
of vampire in Guiana, a larger and a smaller. The 
larger sucks men and other animals ; the smaller seems 
to confine himself chiefly to birds. I learnt from a 
gentleman, high up in the river Demerara, that he was 
completely unsuccessful with his fowls, on account of 
the small vampire. He showed me some that had been 
sucked the night before, and they were scarcely able 
to walk. 

Some years ago I went to the river Paumaron with a 
Scotch gentleman, by name Tarbet, We 
hung our hammocks in the thatched loft of a 
planter's house. Next morning I heard this gentleman 
muttering in his hammock, and now and then letting 
fall an imprecation or two, just about the time he ought 
to have been saying his morning prayers. " What is 
the matter, Sir/' said I, softly; " is anything amiss 1 " 
" What's the matter ! " answered he, surlily ; " why, 
the vampires have been sucking me to death." As soon 
as there was light enough, I went to his hammock, and 
saw it much stained with blood. " There," said he, 
thrusting his foot out of the hammock, " see how these 
infernal imps have been drawing my life's blood." On 



150 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



examining his foot, I found the vampire had tapped 
his great toe : there was a wound somewhat less than 
that made by a leech ; the blood was still oozing from 
it ; I conjectured he might have lost from ten to twelve 
ounces of blood. Whilst examining it, I think I put 
him into a worse humour by remarking, that a European 
surgeon would not have been so generous as to have 
blooded him without making a charge. He looked up 
in my face, but did not say a word : I saw he was of 
opinion that I had better have spared this piece of ill- 
timed levity. 

Species of ^ was no ^ ^ as ^ punishment of this 
large red Ant. g 00( j gentleman in the river Paumaron. 
The next night he was doomed to undergo a kind of 
ordeal unknown in Europe. There is a species of large 
red ant in Guiana, sometimes called Eanger, sometimes 
Coushie. These ants march in millions through the 
country, in compact order, like a regiment of soldiers ; 
they eat up every insect in their march; and if a house 
obstruct their route, they do not turn out of the way, 
but go quite through it. Though they sting cruelly 
when molested, the planter is not sorry to see them in 
his house \ for it is but a passing visit, and they destroy 
every kind of insect vermin that had taken shelter 
under his roof. 

i\ T ow, in the British plantations of Guiana, as well as 
in Europe, there is always a little temple dedicated to 
the goddess Cloacina. Our dinner had chiefly consisted 
of crabs, dressed in rich and different ways. Paumaron 
is famous for crabs, and strangers who go thither con- 
sider them the greatest luxury. The Scotch gentleman 
made a very capital dinner on crabs ; but this change 
of diet was productive of unpleasant circumstances : he 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



151 



awoke in the night in that state in which Virgil de- 
scribes Caeleno to have been, viz. " fcedissima ventris 
proluvies." Up he got, to verify the remark, 

" Serius ant citius, sedern properamus ad imam." 

Now, unluckily for himself, and the nocturnal tran- 
quillity of the planter's house, just at that unfortunate 
hour the coushie ants were passing across the seat of 
Cloacina's temple ; he had never dreamed of this ; and 
so, turning his face to the door, he placed himself in 
the usual situation which the votaries of the goddess 
generally take. Had a lighted match dropped upon a 
pound of gunpowder, as he afterwards remarked, it 
could not have caused a greater recoil. Up he jumped, 
and forced his way out, roaring for help and for a light, 
for he was worried alive by ten thousand devils. The 
fact is, he had sat down upon an intervening body of 
coushie ants. Many of those which escaped being 
crushed to death, turned again'; and, in revenge, stung 
the unintentional intruder most severely. The watch- 
man had fallen asleep, and it was some time before a 
light could be procured, the fire having gone out ; in 
the meantime, the poor gentleman was suffering an in- 
describable martyrdom, and would have found himself 
more at home in the Augean stable than in the planter's 
house. 

I had often wished to have been once sucked by the 
vampire, in order that I might have it in my power to 
say it had really happened to me. There can be no 
pain in the operation, for the patient is always asleep 
when the vampire is sucking him ; and as for the loss 
of a few ounces of blood, that would be a trifle in the 
long run, Many a night have I slept with my foot out 



152 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



of the hammock to tempt this winged surgeon, expect- 
ing that he would be there ; but it was all in vain ; the 
vampire never sucked me, and I could never account 
for his not doing so, for we were inhabitants of the 
same loft for months together. 

The Arma- The Armadillo is very common in these 
mio, forests ; he burrows in the sand-hills like a 

rabbit. As it often takes a considerable time to dig 
him out of his hole, it would be a long and laborious 
business to attack each hole indiscriminately without 
knowing whether the animal were there or not. To 
prevent disappointment, the Indians carefully examine 
the mouth of the hole, and put a short stick down it. 
Now if, on introducing the stick, a number of mosquitos 
come out, the Indians know to a certainty that the 
armadillo is in it : wherever there are no mosquitos 
in the hole, there is no armadillo. The Indian having 
satisfied himself that the armadillo is there, by the 
mosquitos which come out, he immediately cuts a long 
and slender stick, and introduces it into the hole ; he 
carefully observes the line the stick takes, and then 
sinks a pit in the sand to catch the end of it : this 
done, he puts it further into the hole, and digs another 
pit, and so on, till at last he comes up with the arma- 
dillo, which had been making itself a passage in the 
sand till it had exhausted all its strength through pure 
exertion. I have been sometimes three quarters of a 
day in digging out one armadillo, and obliged to sink 
half-a-dozen pits, seven feet deep, before I got up to it. 
The Indians and negroes are very fond of the flesh, but 
I consider it strong and rank. 

On laying hold of the armadillo yon must be cautious 
not to come in contact with his feet : they are armed 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



153 



with sharp claws, and with them he will inflict a severe 
wonnd in self-defence : when not molested, he is very 
harmless and innocent ; he would put you in mind of 
the hare in Gay's Tables, — 

" Whose care was never to offend, 
And every creature was her friend." 

The armadillo swims well in time of need, but does 
not go into the water by choice. He is very seldom 
seen abroad during the day ; and when surprised, he is 
sure to be near the mouth of his hole. Every part of 
the armadillo is well protected by his shell, except his 
ears. In life, this shell is very limber, so that the 
animal is enabled to go at full stretch, or roll himself 
up into a ball, as occasion may require. 

On inspecting the arrangement of the shell, it puts 
you very much in mind of a coat of armour ; indeed it 
is a natural coat of armour to the armadillo, and being 
composed both of scale and bone, it affords ample 
security, and has a pleasing effect. 

The Land Often, when roving in the wilds, I would 
tortoise. f a n j n w ith the Land tortoise ; he too adds 
another to the list of unoffending animals ; he subsists 
on the fallen fruits of the forest. "When an enemy 
approaches he never thinks of moving, but quietly 
draws himself under his shell, and there awaits his 
doom in patience. He only seems to have two enemies 
who can do him any damage ; one of these is the boa 
constrictor : this snake swallows the tortoise alive, shell 
and all. But a boa large enough to do this is "very 
scarce, and thus there is not much to apprehend from 
that quarter. The other enemy is man, who takes up 
the tortoise, and carries him away. Man also is scarce 
in these never-ending wilds, and the little depredations 



154 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



he may commit upon the tortoise will be nothing, or a 
mere trifle. The tiger's teeth cannot penetrate its shell, 
nor can a stroke of his paws do it any damage. It is 
of so compact and strong a nature, that there is a com- 
mon saying, a London waggon might roll over it and 
not break it. 

Ere we proceed, let us take a retrospective view of 
the five animals just enumerated ; they are all quad- 
rupeds, and have some very particular mark, or mode of 
existence, different from all other animals. The sloth 
has four feet, but never can use them to support his 
body on the earth ; they want soles, which are a marked 
feature in the feet of other animals. The ant-bear has 
not a tooth in his head, still he roves fearless on, in 
the same forests with the jaguar and boa constrictor. 
The vampire does not make use of his feet to walk, but 
to stretch a membrane, which enables him to go up into 
an element, where no other quadruped is seen. The 
armadillo has only here and there a straggling hair, and 
has neither fur, nor wool, nor bristles, but in lieu of 
them has received a movable shell, on which are scales 
very much like those of fishes. The tortoise is oviparous, 
entirely without any appearance of hair, and is obliged 
to accommodate itself to a shell which is quite hard 
and inflexible, and in no point of view whatever 
obedient to the will or pleasure of the bearer. The egg 
of the tortoise has a very hard shell, while that of the 
turtle is quite soft. 

In some parts of these forests I saw the 
Vanilla growing luxuriantly. - It creeps up 
the trees to the height of thirty or forty feet. I found 
it difficult to get a ripe pod, as the monkeys are very 
fond of it, and generally take care to get there before 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



155 



me. The pod hangs from the tree in the shape of a 
little scabbard. Yayna is the Spanish for a scabbard, 
and Vanilla for a little scabbard. Hence the name. 

g ^ t In Mibiri creek there was a Cayman of 

Cayman in the small species, measuring about five feet 
in length ; I saw it in the same place for 
months, but could never get a shot at it ; for the 
moment I thought I was sure of it, it dived under the 
water before I could pull the trigger. At last I got an 
Indian with his bow and arrow ; he stood up in the 
canoe with his bow already bent, and as we drifted past 
the place, he sent his arrow into the cayman's eye, and 
killed it dead. The skin of this little species is much 
harder and stronger than that of the large kind ; it is 
good food, and tastes like veal. 

Negro ser- My friend, Mr. Edmonstone, had very 
vant. kindly let me have one of his old negroes, 

and he constantly attended me ; his name was Daddy 
Quashi ; he had a brave stomach for heterogeneous 
food ; it could digest, and relish too, caymen, monkeys, 
hawks, and grubs. The Daddy made three or four 
meals on this cayman while it was not absolutely 
putrid, and salted the rest. I could never get him to 
face a snake ; the horror he betrayed on seeing one 
was beyond description : I asked him why he was so 
terribly alarmed ; he said it was by seeing so many 
dogs, from time to time, killed by them. 

Here I had a fine opportunity of examin- 

Species of . rr J . 

the Capri- mg several species of the Caprimulgus. I 

mulgus. . 

am iully persuaded that these innocent little 
birds never suck the herds ; for when they approach 
them, and jump up at their udders, it is to catch the 
flies and insects there. When the moon shone bright, 



156 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



I would frequently go and stand within three yards of a 
cow, and distinctly see the caprimulgus catch the flies 
on its udder, On looking for them in the forest, during 
the day, I either found them on the ground, or else 
invariably sitting longitudinally on the branch of a tree, 
not crosswise, like all other birds. 

The Wasps, or Maribuntas, are great 
or Maribun-' plagues in these forests, and require the 
naturalist to be cautious as he wanders up 
and down. Some make their nests pendent from the 
branches ; others have them fixed to the underside of 
a leaf. IsTow, in passing on, if you happen to disturb 
one of these, they sally forth and punish you severely. 
The largest kind is blue ; it brings blood where its 
sting enters, and causes pain and inflammation enough 
to create a fever. The Indians make a fire under the 
nest, and after killing, or driving away the old ones, 
they roast the young grubs in the comb and eat them. 
I tried them once by way of dessert after dinner, but 
my stomach was offended at their intrusion ; probably 
it was more the idea than the taste that caused the 
stomach to rebel. 

Time and experience have convinced me that there 
Snakes and is n °t much danger in roving amongst snakes 
wild beasts. an( j w ^ ^ eas ^ provided only that you have 

self- command. Tou must never approach them' ab- 
ruptly ; if so, you are sure to pay for your rashness ; 
because the idea of self-defence is predominant in every 
animal, and thus the snake, to defend himself from 
what he considers an attack upon him, makes the 
intruder feel the deadly effect of his poisonous fangs. 
The jaguar flies at you, and knocks you senseless with a 
stroke of his paw ; whereas, if you had not come upon 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



157 



him too suddenly, it is ten to one but that he had 
retired, in lieu of disputing the path with you. The 
labarri snake is very poisonous, and I have often 
approached within two yards of him without fear. I 
took care to move very softly and gently, without 
moving my arms, and he always allowed me to have a 
fine view of him, without showing the least inclination 
to make a spring at me. He would appear to keep his 
eye fixed on me, as though suspicious, but that was all. 
Sometimes I have taken a stick ten feet long, and 
placed it on the labarri's back. He would then glide 
away without offering resistance. Eut when I put the 
end of the stick abruptly to his head, he immediately 
opened his mouth, flew at it, and bit it. 

One day, wishful to see how the poison 
live Labarri conies out of the fang of the snake, I caught 
a labarri alive. He was about eight feet long. 
I held him by the neck, and my hand was so near his 
jaw, that he had not room to move his head to bite it. 
This was the only position I could have held him in 
with safety and effect. To do so, it only required a little 
resolution and coolness. I then took a small piece of 
stick in the other hand, and pressed it against the fang, 
which is invariably in the upper jaw. Towards the 
point of the fang, there is a little oblong aperture on 
the convex side of it. Through this, there is a com- 
munication down the fang to the root, at which lies a 
little bag containing the poison. Now, when the point 
of the fang is pressed, the root of the fang also presses 
against the bag, and sends up a portion of the poison 
therein contained. Thus, when I applied a piece of 
stick to the point of the fang, there came out of the 
hole a liquor thick and yellow, like strong camomile 



158 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



tea. This was the poison, which is so dreadful in its 
effects, as to render the labarri snake one of the most 
poisonous in the forests of Guiana. I once caught a 
fine labarri, and made it bite itself. I forced the 
poisonous fang into its belly. In a few minutes I 
thought it was going to die, for it appeared dull and 
heavy. However, in half an hour's time, he was as 
brisk and vigorous as ever, and in the course of the day 
showed no symptoms of being affected. Is then the life 
of the snake proof against its own poison ? This subject 
is not unworthy of the consideration of the naturalist. 

The Bete- I n Guiana there is a little insect in the 
rouge. grass, and on the shrubs, which the French 
call Bete-rouge. It is of a beautiful scarlet colour, 
and so minute, that you must bring your eye close 
to it before you can perceive it. It is most numerous 
in the rainy season. Its bite causes an intolerable 
itching. The best way to get rid of it, is to rub the 
part affected with oil or rum. Tou must be careful 
not to scratch it. If you do so, and break the skin, 
you expose yourself to a sore. The first year I was 
in Guiana, the bete-rouge, and my own want of know- 
ledge, and, I may add, the little attention I paid to it, 
created an ulcer above the ankle, which annoyed me for 
six months, and if I hobbled out into the grass, a 
number of bete-rouge would settle on the edges of the 
sore, and increase the inflammation. 

The Still more inconvenient, painful, and an- 

Cnegoe. n0 ymg is another little pest, called the 
Chegoe. It looks exactly like a very small flea, and a 
stranger would take it for one. However, in about 
four and twenty hours, he would have several broad 
hints that he had made a mistake in his ideas of the 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



159 



animal. It attacks different parts of the body, but 
chiefly the feet, betwixt the toe-nails and the flesh. 
There it buries itself, and at first causes an itching not 
unpleasant. In a day or so, after examining the part, 
you perceive a place about the size of a pea, somewhat 
discoloured, rather of a blue appearance. Sometimes it 
happens that the itching is so trivial, you are not aware 
that the miner is at work. Time, they say, makes 
great discoveries. The discoloured part turns out to be 
the nest of the chegoe, containing hundreds of eggs, 
which, if allowed to hatch there, the young ones will 
soon begin to form other nests, and in time cause a 
spreading ulcer. As soon as you perceive that you 
have got the chegoe in your flesh, you must take a 
needle, or a sharp-pointed knife, and take it out. If 
the nest be formed, great care must be taken not to 
break it, otherwise some of the eggs remain in the flesh, 
and then you will soon be annoyed with more chegoes. 
After removing the nest, it is well to drop spirit of 
turpentine into the hole; that will most effectually 
destroy any chegoe that may be lurking there. Some- 
times I have taken four nests out of my feet in the 
course of the day. 

Every evening, before sun-down, it was part of my 
toilette to examine my feet, and see that they were 
clear of chegoes. Now and then a nest would escape 
the scrutiny, and then I had to smart for it a day or 
two after. A chegoe once lit upon the back of my 
hand ; wishful to see how he worked, I allowed him to 
take possession. He immediately set to work, head 
foremost, and in about half an hour he had completely 
buried himself in the skin. I then let him feel the 
point of my knife, and exterminated him. 



160 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



More than once, after sitting down npon 
a rotten stump, I have found myself covered 
with Ticks. There is a short and easy way to get quit 
of these unwelcome adherents. Make a large fire and 
stand close to it, and if you be covered with ticks, they 
will all fall off. 

Let us now forget for awhile the quadrupeds, ser- 
pents, and insects, and take a transitory view of the 
native Indians of these forests. 

Principal There are five principal nations or tribes 
tribes 1 of in- °^ Indians in ci-devant Dutch Guiana, com- 
dians. monly known by the name of Warow, Aro- 

wack, Acoway, Carib, and Macoushi. They live in small 
hamlets, which consist of a few huts, never exceeding 
twelve in number. These huts are always in the forest, 
near a river or some creek. They are open on all 
sides, (except those of the Macoushi,) and covered 
with a species of palm leaf. 

Their principal furniture is the hammock. It serves 
Their ham- thera both for chair and bed. It is com- 
mocks. monly made of cotton ; though those of the 
Warows are formed from the seta-tree. At night they 
always make a fire close to it. The heat keeps them 
warm, and the smoke drives away the mosquitos and 
sand- flies. You sometimes find a table in the hut ; but 
it was not made by the Indians, but by some negro, or 
mulatto carpenter. 

They cut down about an acre or two of 

Occupations. 

the trees which surround the huts, and there 
plant pepper, papaws, sweet and bitter cassava, plan- 
tains, sweet potatoes, yams, pine-apples, and silk-grass. 
Besides these, they generally have a few acres in some 
fertile part of the forest for their cassava, which is as 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



161 



bread to them. They make earthen pots to boil their 
provisions in; and they get from the white men flat 
circular plates of iron, on which they bake their cas- 
sava. They have to grate the cassava before it is 
pressed, preparatory to baking; and those Indians who 
are too far in the wilds to procure graters from the 
white men, make use of a flat piece of wood, studded with 
sharp stones. They have no cows, horses, mules, goats, 
sheep, or asses. The men hunt and fish, and the women 
work in the provision-ground, and cook their victuals. 
" Fermented ^ n eacn hamlet there is the trunk of a 
liquor. large tree, hollowed out like a trough. In 
this, from their cassava, they make an abominable ill- 
tasted and sour kind of fermented liquor, called piwarri. 
They are very fond of it, and never fail to get drunk 
after every brewing. The frequency of the brewing 
depends upon the superabundance of cassava. 

Both men and women go without clothes. The men 
have a cotton wrapper, and the women a 

Their habits. _ _ ri . 

bead-ornamented square piece of cotton, 
about the size of your hand, for the fig-leaf. Those far 
away in the interior, use the bark of a tree for this 
purpose. They are a very clean people, and wash in 
the river, or creek, at least twice every day. They 
paint themselves with the roucou, sweetly perfumed 
with hayawa or accaiari. Their hair is black and lank, 
and never curled. The women braid it up fancifully, 
something in the shape of Diana's head-dress in ancient 
pictures. They have very few diseases. Old age and 
pulmonary complaints seem to be the chief agents for 
removing them to another world. The pulmonary com- 
plaints are generally brought on by a severe cold, which 
they do not know how to arrest in its progress, by the 

M 



162 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



use of the lancet. I never saw an idiot amongst them, 
nor could I perceive any that were deformed from their 
birth. Their women never perish in childbed, owing, 
no doubt, to their never wearing stays. 

They have no public relicrious ceremony. 

Religious J r ... 

customs and They acknowledge two superior bemgs, — a 
good one and a bad one. They pray to the 
latter not to hurt them, and they are of opinion that 
the former is too good to do them an injury. I suspect, 
if the truth were known, the individuals of the village 
never offer up a single prayer or ejaculation. They 
have a kind of priest, called a Pee-ay-nian, who is an 
enchanter. He finds out things lost. He mutters 
prayers to the evil spirit over them and their children 
when they are sick. If a fever be in the village, the 
Pee-ay-man goes about all night long, howling and 
making dreadful noises, and begs the bad spirit to 
depart. But he has very seldom to perform this part 
of his duty, as fevers seldom visit the Indian hamlets. 
However, when a fever does come, and his incantations 
are of no avail, which I imagine is most commonly the 
case, they abandon the place for ever, and make a new 
settlement elsewhere. They consider the owl and the 
goatsucker as familiars of the evil spirit, and never 
destroy them. 

I could find no monuments or marks of antiquity 
amongst these Indians ; so that after penetrating to 
the Eio Eranco, from the shores of the Western Ocean, 
had anybody questioned me on this subject, I should 
have answered, I have seen nothing amongst these 
Indians which tells me that they have existed here 
for a century ; though, for aught I know to the con- 
trary, they may have been here before the Eedemption ; 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



163 



but their total want of civilization has assimilated 
them to the forests in which they wander. Thus, an 
aged tree falls and moulders into dust, and you cannot 
tell what was its appearance, its beauties, or its diseases 
amongst the neighbouring trees ; another has shot up 
in its place, and after nature has had her course, it will 
make way for a successor in its turn. So it is with the 
Indian of Guiana : he is now laid low in the dust ; he 
has left no record behind him, either on parchment, or 
on a stone, or in earthenware, to say what he has done. 
Perhaps the place where his buried ruins lie was un- 
healthy, and the survivors have left it long ago, and 
gone far away into the wilds. All that you can say is, 
the trees where I stand appear lower and smaller than 
the rest, and from this I conjecture that some Indians 
may have had a settlement here formerly. Were I by 
chance to meet the son of the father who moulders 
here, he could tell me that his father was famous for 
slaying tigers and serpents and caymen, and noted in 
the chase of the tapir and wild boar, but that he re- 
members little or nothing of his grandfather. 

They are very jealous of their liberty, and much 
attached to their own mode of living. Though those- 
in the neighbourhood of the European settlements have 
constant communication with the whites, they have no 
inclination to become civilized. Some Indians who 
have accompanied white men to Europe, on returning 
to their own land, have thrown off their clothes, and 
gone back into the forests. 

In George-town, the capital of Demerara, there is a 
large shed, open on all sides, built for them by order of 
government. Hither the Indians come with monkeys, 
parrots, bows and arrows, n-nd pegalls. They sell these 

M 2 



164 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 

to the white nien for money, and too often purchase 
rum with it, to which they are wonderfully addicted. 

Government allows them annual presents, in order to 
have their services when the colony deems it necessary 
to scour the forests in quest of runaway negroes. For- 
merly these expeditions were headed by Charles Edmon- 
stone, Esq. now of Cardross-park, near Dumbarton. 
This brave colonist never returned from the woods 
without being victorious. Once, in an attack upon the 
rebel negroes' camp, he led the way, and received two 
balls in his body; at the same moment that he was 
wounded, two of his Indians fell dead by his side ; he 
recovered after his life was despaired of, but the balls 
could never be extracted. 

Since the above appeared in print, I have had the 
account of this engagement with the negroes in the 
forest from Mr. Edmons tone's own mouth. 

He received four slugs in his body, as will be seen in 
the sequel. 

The plantations of Demerara and Essequibo are 
bounded by an almost interminable extent of forest. 
Hither the runaway negroes repair, and form settle- 
ments, from whence they issue to annoy the colonists, 
as occasion may offer. 

In 1801, the runaway slaves had increased to an 
alarming extent. The Governor gave orders, that an 
expedition should be immediately organized, and pro- 
ceed to the woods, under the command of Charles 
Edmonstone, Esq. General Hislop sent him a corporal, 
a sergeant, and eleven men, and he was joined by a part 
of the colonial militia, and by sixty Indians. 

With this force Mr. Edmonstone entered the forest, 
and proceeded in a direction towards Mahaica. 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



165 



He inarched for eight days through swanips, and over 
places obstructed by fallen trees and the bush-rope ; 
tormented by myriads of mosquitos, and ever in fear 
of treading on the poisonous snakes, which can scarcely 
be distinguished from the fallen leaves. 

At last he readied a wooded sand-hill, where the 
Maroons had intrenched themselves in great force. TSot 
expecting to come so soon upon them, Mr. Edmonstone, 
his faithful man Coffee, and two Indian chiefs, found 
themselves considerably a-head of their own party. As 
yet, they were unperceived by the enemy, but, unfortu- 
nately, one of the Indian chiefs fired a random shot at 
a distant Maroon. Immediately the whole negro camp 
turned out, and formed themselves in a crescent, in 
front of Mr. Edmonstone. Their chief was an uncom- 
monly fine negro, about six feet in height ; and his 
head-dress was that of an African warrior, ornamented 
with a profusion of small shells. He advanced un- 
dauntedly with his gun in his hand, and, in insulting 
language, called out to Mr. Edmonstone to come on and 
fight him. 

Mr. Edmonstone approached him slowly, in order 
to give his own men time to come up ; but they were 
yet too far off for him to profit by this manoeuvre. 
Coffee, who carried his master's gun, now stepped up 
behind him, and put the gun into his hand, which 
Mr. Edmonstone received without advancing it to his 
shoulder. 

He was now within a few yards of the Maroon chief, 
who seemed to betray some symptoms of uncertainty ; 
for instead of firing directly at Mr. Edmonstone, he 
took a step sideways and rested his gun against a tree, 
no doubt with the intention of taking a surer aim. 



166 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



Mr. Edmonstone, on perceiving this, immediately cocked 
his gun, and fired it off, still holding it in the position 
in which he had received it from Coffee. 

The whole of the contents entered the negro's body, 
and he dropped dead on his face. 

The negroes, who had formed in a crescent, now in 
their turn fired a volley, which brought Mr. Edmon- 
stone and his two Indian chiefs to the ground. The 
Maroons did not stand to reload, but on Mr. Edmon- 
stone's party coming up, they fled precipitately into the 
surrounding forest. 

Four slugs had entered Mr. Edmonstone's body. 
After coming to himself, on looking around he saw one 
of the fallen Indian chiefs bleeding by his side. He 
accosted him by name, and said he hoped he was not 
much hurt. The dying Indian had just strength enough 
to answer, " Oh no,"- — and then expired. The other 
chief was lying quite dead. He must have received 
his mortal wound just as he was in the act of cocking 
his gun to fire on the negroes ; for it appeared that the 
ball which gave him his death-wound had carried off 
the first joint of his thumb, and passed through his 
forehead. By this time his wife, who had accompanied 
the expedition, came up. She was a fine young woman, 
and had her long black hair fancifully braided in a 
knot on the top of her head, fastened with a silver 
ornament. She unloosed it, and falling on her hus- 
band's body, covered it with her hair, bewailing his 
untimely end with the most heart-rending cries. 

The blood was now running out of Mr. Edmonstone's 
shoes. On being raised up, he ordered his men to pur- 
sue the flying Maroons, requesting at the same time 
that he might be left where he had fallen, as he felt 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



167 



that lie was mortally wounded. They gently placed 
him on the ground, and after the pursuit of the 
Maroons had ended, the corporal and sergeant returned 
to their commander, and formed their men. On his 
asking what this meant, the sergeant replied, " I had 
the General's orders, on setting out from town, not to 
leave you in the forest, happen what might." By slow 
and careful marches, as much as the obstructions in the 
woods would admit of, the party reached Plantation 
Alliance, on the bank of the Demerara, and from thence 
it crossed the river to Plantation Yredestein. 

The news of the rencounter had been spread far and 
wide by the Indians, and had already reached town. 
The General, Captains Macrai and Johnstone, and 
Doctor Dunkin, proceeded to Vredestein. On examin- 
ing Mr. Edmonstone's wounds, four slugs were found 
to have entered the body ; one was extracted, the rest 
remained there till the year 1824, when another was 
cut out by a professional gentleman of Port-Glasgow. 
The other two still remain in the body ; and it is sup- 
posed that either one or both have touched a nerve, 
as they cause almost continual pain. Mr. Edmonstone 
has commanded fifteen different expeditions in the 
forest in quest of the Maroons. The Colonial Govern- 
ment has requited his services, by freeing his pro- 
perty from all taxes, and presenting him a handsome 
sword, and a silver urn bearing the following inscrip- 
tion : — 

" Presented to Charles Edmonstone, Esq. by the Governor 
and Conrt of Policy of the Colony of Demerara; as a token of 
their esteem, and the deep sense they entertain of the very great 
activity and spirit manifested by him, on various occasions, in 
his successful exertions for the internal security of the Colony. — 
January 1st, 1809." 



168 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



I do not believe that there is a single Indian in ci- 
devant Dutch Guiana who can read or write, 
General Re- nor am j aware that any white man has 

m irks, y 

reduced their language to the rules of gram- 
mar ; some may have made a short manuscript vocabu- 
lary of the few necessary words, but that is all. Here 
and there a white man, and some few people of colour, 
talk the language well. The temper of the Indian of 
Guiana is mild and gentle, and he is very fond of his 
children. 

Some ignorant travellers and colonists call these 
Indians a lazy race. Men in general will not be active 
without an object. Now, when the Indian has caught 
plenty of fish, and killed game enough to last him for 
a week, what need has he to range the forest ? He has 
no idea of making pleasure-grounds. Money is of no 
use to him, for in these wilds there are no markets for 
him to frequent, nor milliners' shops for his wife and 
daughters ; he has no taxes to pay, no highways to 
keep up, no poor to maintain, nor army nor navy to 
supply ; he lies in his hammock both night and day, 
(for he has no chair or bed, neither does he want them,) 
and in it he forms his bow, and makes his arrows, and 
repairs his fishing-tackle. But as soon as he has con- 
sumed his provisions, he then rouses himself, and, like 
the lion, scours the forest in quest of food. He plunges 
into the river after the deer and tapir, and swims across 
it ; passes through swamps and quagmires, and never 
fails to obtain a sufficient supply of food. Should 
the approach of night stop his career while he is hunt- 
ing the wild boar, he stops for the night, and continues 
the chase the next morning. In my way through the 
wilds to the Portuguese frontier, I had a proof of this. 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



169 



We were eight in number, six Indians, a negro, and 
! myself. About ten o'clock in the morning we observed 
the feet-mark of the wild boars ; we judged by the fresh- 
ness of the marks that they had passed that way early 
the same morning. « As we were not gifted, like the 
hound, with scent, and as we had no dog with us, we 
followed their track by the eye. The Indian after game 
is as sure with his eye as the dog is with his nose. 
We followed the herd till three in the afternoon, then 
gave up the chase for the present ; made our fires close 
to a creek where there was plenty of fish, and then 
arranged the hammocks. In an hour the Indians shot 
more fish with their arrows than we could consume. 
The night was beautifully serene and clear, and the moon 
shone as bright as day. Next morn we rose at dawn, got 
breakfast, packed up, each took his burden, and then we 
put ourselves on the track of the wild boars, which we 
had been following the day before. We supposed that 
they, too, would sleep that night in the forest, as we 
had done ; and thus the delay on our part would be no 
disadvantage to us. This was just the case, for about 
nine o'clock their feet-mark became fresher and fresher : 
we now doubled our pace, but did not give mouth like 
hounds. We pushed on in silence, and soon came up 
with them ; there were about one hundred of them ; 
we killed six, and the rest took off in different direc- 
tions. But to the point. 

Amongst us the needy man works from light to dark 
for a maintenance. Should this man chance to acquire 
a fortune, he soon changes his habits. No longer under 
" strong necessity's supreme command," he contrives to 
get out of bed between nine and ten in the morning. 
His servant helps him to dress, he walks on a soft 



170 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



carpet to his breakfast table, his wife pours out his tea, 
and his servant hands him his toast. After breakfast, 
the doctor advises a little gentle exercise in the car- 
riage for an hour or so. At dinner-time he sits down 
to a table groaning beneath the weight of heteroge- 
neous luxury ; there he rests upon a chair for three or 
four hours, eats, drinks, and talks (often unmeaningly) 
till tea is announced. He proceeds slowly to the draw- 
ing-room, and there spends best part of his time in 
sitting, till his wife tempts him with something warm 
for supper. After supper, he still remains on his chair 
at rest, till he retires for the night. He mounts 
leisurely upstairs upon a carpet, and enters his bed- 
room : there, one would hope that at least he mutters 
a prayer or two, though perhaps not on bended knee : 
he then lets himself drop into a soft and downy bed, 
over which has just passed the comely Jenny's warm- 
ing-pan. Now, could the Indian in his turn see this 
he would call the white men a lazy, indolent set. 

Perhaps then, upon due reflection, you would draw 
this conclusion; that men will always be indolent 
where there is no object to rouse them. 

As the Indian of Guiana has no idea 

Indian me- 
thod :of com- whatever of communicating his intentions 

inunication. . , 

by writing, he has fallen upon a plan of 
communication sure and simple. When two or three 
families have determined to come down the river and 
pay you a visit, they send an Indian beforehand with a 
string of beads. You take one bead off every day j 
and on the day that the string is headless, they arrive 
at your house. 

In finding their way through these pathless wilds, 
the sun is to them what Ariadne's clue was to Theseus. 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



171 



When he is on the meridian, they generally sit down, 
and rove onwards again as soon as he has sufficiently 
declined to the west ; they require no other compass. 
When in chase, they break a twig on the bushes as 
they pass by, every 1 three or four hundred paces, and 
this often prevents them from losing their way on their 
return. 

You will not be long in the forests of Guiana before 
you perceive how very thinly they are inhabited. You 
may wander for a week together without seeing a hut. 
The wild beasts, the snakes, the swamps, the trees, the 
uncurbed luxuriance of everything around you, conspire 
to inform you that man has no habitation here — man 
has seldom passed this way. 

Let us now return to natural history. There was a 
person making shingles, with twenty or thirty negroes, 
not far from Mibiri-hill. I had offered a reward to any 
' of them who would find a good-sized snake in the 
forest, and come and let me know where it was. Often 
had these negroes looked for a large snake, and as often 
been disappointed. 

One Sunday morning I met one of them in. the 
forest, and asked him which way he was going : he said 
he was going towards Warratilla Creek to hunt an arma- 
dillo : and he had his little dog with him. On coming 
back, about noon, the dog began to bark at the root of 
a large tree, which had been upset by the whirlwind, 
and was lying there in a gradual state of decay. The 
negro said, he thought his dog was barking at an acouri, 
which had probably taken refuge under the tree, and 
he went up with an intention to kill it ; he there saw 
a snake, and hastened back to inform me of it. 

The sun had just passed the meridian in a cloudless 



172 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



sky; there was scarcely a bird to be seen, for the 
winged inhabitants of the forest, as though overcome 

by heat, had retired to the thickest shade : all 
search of a would have been like midnight silence, were 

it not that the shrill voice of the pi-pi-yo 
every now and then resounded from a distant tree. I 
was sitting, with a little Horace in my hand, on what 
had once been the steps which formerly led up to the 
now mouldering and dismantled building. The negro 
and his little dog came down the hill in haste, and I 
was soon informed that a snake had been discovered ; 
but it was a young one, called the Bush-master, a rare 
and poisonous snake. 

I instantly rose up, and laying hold of the eight-foot 
lance, which was close by me, "Well then, Daddy," 
said I, " we'll go and have a look at the snake." I was 
bare-foot, with an old hat, check shirt, and trowsers 
on, and a pair of braces to keep them up. The negro 
had his cutlass ; and as we ascended the hill, another 
negro, armed with a cutlass, joined us, judging, from 
our pace, that there was something to do. The little 
dog came along with us ; and when we had got about 
half a mile in the forest, the negro stopped, and pointed 
to the fallen tree : all was still and silent. I told the 
negroes not to stir from the^ place where they were, and 
keep the little dog in, and that I would go in and 
reconnoitre. 

I advanced up to the place, slow and cau- 

Finds and . 

secures an tious. The snake was well concealed, but at 

enormous . 

Couiacanara last 1 made him out ; it was a Coulacanara 
not poisonous, but large enough to have 
crushed any of us to death. On measuring him after- 
wards, he was something more than fourteen feet long. 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



173 



This species of snake is very rare, and much thicker, in 
proportion to his length, than any other snake in the 
forest. A Coulacanara of fourteen feet in length is as 
thick as a common Boa of twenty-four. After skin- 
ning this snake I could easily get my head into his 
mouth, as the singular formation of the jaws admits of 
wonderful extension. 

A Dutch friend of mine, by name Brouwer, killed a 
boa, twenty-two feet long, with a pair of stag's horns in 
his mouth : he had swallowed the stag, but could not 
get the horns down : so he had to wait in patience with 
that uncomfortable mouthful till his stomach digested 
the body, and then the horns would drop out. In this 
plight the Dutchman found him as he was going in his 
canoe up the river, and sent a ball through his head. 

On ascertaining the size of the serpent which the 
negro had just found, I retired slowly the way I came, 
and promised four dollars to the negro who had shown 
it to me, and one to the other who had joined us, 
Aware that the day was on the decline, and that the 
approach of night would be detrimental to the dissec- 
tion, a thought struck me that I could take him alive. 
I imagined, if I could strike him with the lance behind 
the head, and pin him to the ground, I might succeed 
in capturing him. When I told this to the negroes, 
they begged and entreated me to let them go for a gun 
and bring more force, as they were sure the snake 
would kill some of us. 

. I had been at the siege of Troy for nine years, and it 
would not do now to carry back to Greece, " nil decimo 
nisi dedecus anno." I mean, I had been in search of a 
large serpent for years, and. now having come up with 
one, it did not become me to turn soft. So, taking a 



174 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



cutlass from one of the negroes, and then ranging both 
the sahle slaves behind me, I told them to follow 
and that I would cut them down if they offered to fly. 
I smiled as I said this, but they shook their heads in 
silence, and seemed to have but a bad heart of it. 

When we got up to the place, the serpent had not 
stirred, but I could see nothing of his head ; and I 
judged by the folds [of his body that it must be at the 
farthest side of his den. A species of woodbine had 
formed a complete mantle over the branches of the 
fallen tree, almost impervious to the rain or the rays of 
the sun. Probably he had resorted to this sequestered 
place for a length of time, as it bore marks of an 
ancient settlement. 

I now took my knife, determining to cut away the 
woodbine, and break the twigs in the gentlest manner 
possible, till I could get a view of his head. 

Prepares to 

grapple with One negro stood guard close behind me with 

the Snake. ° , 

the lance; and near him the other with a 
cutlass. The cutlass which I had taken from the first 
negro was on the ground close by me in case of need. 

After working in dead silence for a quarter of an 
hour, with one knee all the time on the ground, I had 
cleared away enough to see his head. It appeared 
coming out betwixt the first and second coil of the 
body, and was fiat on the ground. This was the very 
position I wished it to be in. 

I rose in silence and retreated very slowly, making 
a sign to the negroes to do the same. The dog was 
sitting at a distance in mute observance. I could now 
read in the face of the negroes that they considered 
this as a very unpleasant affair : and they made another 
attempt to persuade me to let them go for a gun. I 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



175 



smiled in a good-natured manner, and made a feint to 
cut them down with the weapon I had in my hand. 
This was all the answer I made to their request, and 
they looked very uneasy. 

It must be observed, we were now about twenty 
yards from the snake's den. I now ranged the negroes 
behind me, and told him who stood next to me, to lay 
hold of the lance the moment I struck the snake, and 
that the other must attend my movements. It now 
only remained to take their cutlasses from them, for 
I was sure, if I did not disarm them, they would be 
tempted to strike the snake in time of danger, and thus 
for ever spoil his skin. On taking their cutlasses from 
them, if I might judge from their physiognomy, they 
seemed to consider it as a most intolerable act of tyranny 
in me. Probably nothing kept them from bolting, but 
the consolation that I was to be betwixt them and the 
snake. Indeed, my own heart, in spite of all I could 
do, beat quicker than usual ; and I felt those sensations 
which one has on board a merchant vessel in war time, 
when the captain orders all hands on deck to prepare 
for action, while a strange vessel is coming down upon 
us under suspicious colours. 

We went slowly on in silence, without moving our 
arms or heads, in order to prevent all alarm as much as 
possible, lest the snake should glide off, or attack us in 
self-defence. I carried the lance perpendicularly before 
me, with the point about a foot from the ground. The 
snake had not moved ; and on getting up to him I 
struck him with the lance on the near side, just behind 
the neck, and pinned him to the ground. That moment 
the negro next to me seized the lance, and held it firm 
in its place, while I dashed head foremost into the den 



176 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



to grapple with, the snake, and to get hold of his tail 
before he could do any mischief. 

On pinning him to the ground with the lance, he 
gave a tremendous loud hiss, and the little dog ran 
away, howling as he went. We had a sharp fray in 
the den, the rotten sticks flying on all sides, and each 
party struggling for superiority. I called out to the 
second negro to throw himself upon me, as I found I 
was not heavy enough. He did so, and the additional 
weight was of great service. I had now got firm hold 
of his tail ; and after a violent struggle or two, he gave 
in, finding himself overpowered. This was the moment 
to secure him. So, while the first negro continued to 
hold the lance firm to the ground, and the other was 
helping me, I contrived to unloose my braces, and with 
them tied up the snake's mouth. 

The snake now finding himself in an unpleasant situa- 
tion, tried to better himself, and set resolutely to work, 
but we overpowered him. We contrived to make him 
twist himself round the shaft of the lance, and then 
prepared to convey him out of the forest. I stood at 
his head, and held it firm under my arm, one negro 
supported the belly, and the other the tail. In this 
order we began to move slowly towards home, and 
reached it after resting ten times ; for the snake was 
too heavy for us to support him without stopping to 
recruit our strength. As we proceeded onwards with 
him, he fought hard for freedom, but it was all in vain. 
The day was now too far spent to think of dissecting 
him. Had I killed him, a partial putrefaction would 
have taken place before morning. I had brought with 
me up into the forest a strong bag, large enough to con- 
tain any animal that I should want to dissect. I 



THIRD JOURNEY. 177 

| considered this the best mode of keeping live wild 
! animals when I was pressed for daylight ; for the bag 
yielding in every direction to their efforts, they would 
have nothing solid or fixed to work on, and thus would 
be prevented from making a hole through it. I say 
fixed, for after the mouth of the bag was closed, the 
bag itself was not fastened or tied to anything, but 
moved about wherever the animal inside caused it to 
roll. After securing afresh the mouth of the coulaca- 
nara, so that he could not open it, he was forced into 
this bag, and left to his fate till morning. 

I cannot say he allowed me to have a quiet night. 
My hammock was in the loft just above him, and the 
floor betwixt us half gone to decay, so that in parts of 
it no boards intervened betwixt his lodging-room and 
mine. He was very restless and fretful ; and had 
Medusa been my wife, there could not have been more 
continued and disagreeable hissing in the bed-chamber 
that night. At day-break, I sent to borrow ten of the 
negroes who were cutting wood at a distance ; I could 
have done with half that number, but judged it most 
prudent to have a good force, in case he should try to 
escape from the house when we opened the bag. How- 
ever, nothing serious occurred. 

"We untied the mouth of the bag, kept 

Kills and ° 7 r 

dissects the him down by main force, and then I cut his 

Snake. J 

throat. He bled like an ox. By six o'clock 
the same evening, he was completely dissected. On 
examining his teeth, I observed that they were all bent 
like tenter-hooks, pointing down his throat, and not so 
large or strong as I expected to have found them ; but 
they are exactly suited to what they are intended by 
nature to perform. The snake does not masticate his 



178 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



food, and thus the only service his teeth have to per- 
form is to seize his prey, and hold it till he swallows it 
whole. 

In general, the skins of snakes are sent to museums 
without the head ; for when the Indians and negroes 
kill a snake, they seldom fail to cut off the head, and 
then they run no risk from its teeth. "When the skin 
is stuffed in the museum, a wooden head is substituted, 
armed with teeth which are large enough to suit a 
tiger's jaw ; and this tends to mislead the spectator, 
and give him erroneous ideas. 

During this fray with the serpent, the old negro, 
Daddy Quashi, was in George-town procuring provi- 
sions, and just returned in time to help to take the 
skin off. He had spent best part of his life in the 
forest with his old master, Mr. Edmonstone, and 
amused me much in recounting their many adventures 
amongst the wild beasts. The Daddy had a particular 
horror of snakes, and frankly declared he could never 
have faced the one in question. 

The week following, his courage was put 

Attacks .° r T 

another to the test, and he made good his words. It 
was a curious conflict, and took place near 
the spot where I had captured the large snake. In the 
morning I had been following a new species of paroquet, 
and the day being rainy, I had taken an umbrella to 
keep the gun dry, and had left it under a tree ; in the 
afternoon I took Daddy Quashi with me to look for it. 
Whilst he was searching about, curiosity took me 
towards the place of the late scene of action. There 
was a path where timber had formerly been dragged 
along. Here I observed a young coulacanara, ten feet 
long, slowly moving onwards ; I saw he was not thick 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



179 



enough to break my arm, in case he got twisted round 
it. There was not a moment to be lost. I laid hold 
of his tail with the left hand, one knee being on the 
ground ; with the right I took off my hat, and held it 
as you would hold a shield for defence. 

The snake instantly turned, and came on at me, with 
his head about a yard from the ground, as if to ask 
me, what business I had to take liberties with his tail. 
I let him come, hissing and open-mouthed, within two 
feet of my face, and then, with all the force I was 
master of, I drove my fist, shielded by my hat, full in 
his jaws. He was stunned and confounded by the 
blow, and ere he could recover himself, I had seized his 
throat with both hands, in such a position that he 
could not bite me ; I then allowed him to coil himself 
round my body, and marched off with him as my lawful 
prize. He pressed me hard, but not alarmingly so. 

In the mean time, Daddy Quashi, having found the 
umbrella, and having heard the noise which the fray 
occasioned, was coming cautiously up. As soon as he 
saw me, and in what company I was, he turned about 
and ran off home, I after him, and shouting, to increase 
his fear. On scolding him for his cowardice, the old 
rogue begged that I would forgive him, for that the 
sight of the snake had positively turned him sick at 
stomach. 

When I had clone with the carcass of the large 
snake, it was conveyed into the forest, as I expected 
that it would attract the king of the vultures, as soon 
as time should have rendered it sufficiently savoury. 
: In a few days it sent forth that odour which a carcass 
should send forth, and about twenty of the common 
vultures came and perched on the neighbouring trees ; 

n 2 



180 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



the king of the vultures came too ; and I observed that 
none of the common ones seemed inclined to begin 
breakfast till his majesty had finished. When he had 
consumed as much snake as nature informed him would 
do him good, he retired to the top of a high mora-tree ; 
and then all the common vultures fell to, and made a 
hearty meal. 

The King of The head and neck of the king of the 
the vultures. vultures are bare of f eat hers ; but the beau- 
tiful appearance they exhibit fades in death. The 
throat and the back of the neck are of a fine lemon 
colour; both sides of the neck, from the ears down- 
wards, of a rich scarlet; behind the corrugated part 
there is a white spot, The crown of the head is scarlet ; 
betwixt the lower mandible and the eye, and close by 
the ear, there is a part which has a fine silvery blue 
appearance ; the corrugated part is of a dirty light 
brown; behind it, and just above the white spot, a 
portion of the skin is blue, and the rest scarlet; the 
skin which juts out behind the neck, and appears like 
an oblong caruncle, is blue in part, and part orange. 

The bill is orange and black, the caruncles 
on his forehead orange, and the cere orange ; 
the orbits scarlet, and the irides white. Below the 
bare part of the neck there is a cinereous ruff. The 
bag of the stomach, which is only seen when distended 
with food, is of a most delicate white, intersected with 
blue veins, which appear on it just like the blue veins 
on the arm of a fair-complexioned person. The tail 
and long wing-feathers are black, the belly white, and 
the rest of the body a fine satin colour. 

I cannot be persuaded that the vultures ever feed 
upon live animals, not even upon lizards, rats, mice, or 



THIRD JOURNEY. 181 

| frogs ; I have watched them for hours together, but 
I never could see them touch any living animals, though 
> innumerable lizards, frogs, and small birds swarmed all 
around them. I have killed lizards and frogs, and put 
i them in a proper place for observation • as soon as they 
began to stink, the aura vulture invariably came and 
took them off. I have frequently observed, that the 
day after the planter had burnt the trash in a cane-field, 
the aura vulture was sure to be there, feeding on the 
snakes, lizards, and frogs which had suffered in the 
conflagration. I often saw a large bird (very much 
like the common gregarious vulture at a distance) catch 
and devour lizards \ after shooting one, it turned out 
to be not a vulture, but a hawk, with a tail squarer and 
shorter than hawks have in general. The vultures, 
like the goatsucker and woodpecker, seem to be in dis- 
grace with man. They are generally termed a voracious, 
stinking, cruel, and ignoble tribe. Under these im- 
pressions, the fowler discharges his gun at them, and 
probably thinks he has done well in ridding the earth 
of such vermin. 

Some governments impose a fine on him who kills a 
vulture. This is a salutary law, and it were to be 
wished that other governments would follow so good 
an example. I would fain here say a word or two in 
favour of this valuable scavenger. 

Kind Providence has conferred a blessing on hot 
countries in giving them the vulture ; he has ordered 
it to consume that which, if left to dissolve in putre- 
faction, would infect the air and produce a pestilence. 
When full of food, the vulture certainly appears an 
indolent bird ; he will stand for hours together on the 
branch of a tree, or on the top of a house, with his 



182 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



wings drooping, and, after rain, with, them spread and 
elevated to catch the rays of the sun. It has been 
remarked by naturalists, that the flight of this bird is 
laborious. I have paid attention to the vulture in 
Andalusia, and to those in Guiana, Brazil, and the 
West Indies, and conclude that they are birds of long, 
even, and lofty flight. Indeed, whoever has observed 
the aura vulture, will be satisfied that his flight is 
wonderfully majestic, and of long continuance. 

This bird is above five feet from wing to wing 
extended. You will see it soaring aloft in the aerial 
expanse on pinions which never flutter, and which at 
the same time carry him through the fields of ether 
with a rapidity equal to that of the golden eagle. In 
Paramaribo the laws protect the vulture, and the 
Spaniards of Angustura never think of molesting him. 
In 1808, I saw the vultures in that city as tame as 
domestic fowls ; a person who had never seen a vulture 
would have taken them for turkeys. They were very 
useful to the Spaniards ; had it not been for them, the 
refuse of the slaughter-houses in Angustura would have 
caused an intolerable nuisance. 

other species ^ ne common black, short, square-tailed 
of Vulture. vulture is gregarious ; but the aura vulture 
is not so : for, though you may see fifteen or twenty of 
them feeding on the dead vermin in a cane-field, after 
the trash has been set fire to, still, if you have paid 
attention to their arrival, you will have observed that 
they came singly and retired singly ; and thus their 
being all together in the same field was merely acci- 
dental, and caused by each one smelling the effluvia as 
he was soaring through the sky to look out for food. 
I have watched twenty come into a cane-field ; they 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



183 



arrived one by one, and from different parts of the 
heavens. Hence we may conclude, that though the 
other species of vulture are gregarious, the aura vulture 
is not. 

If you dissect a vulture that has just been feeding 
on carrion, you must expect that your olfactory nerves 
will be somewhat offended with the rank effluvia from 
his craw ; just as they would be were you to dissect a 
citizen after the Lord Mayor's dinner. If, on the con- 
trary, the vulture be empty at the time you commence 
the operation, there will be no offensive smell, but a 
strong scent of musk. 

I had long wished to examine the native haunts of 
the cayman ; but as the river Demerara did not afford 
a specimen of the large kind, I was obliged to go to 
the river Essequibo to look for one. 
„ . I got the canoe ready, and went down 

Sails maca- ° J 7 

noe down to in it to George-town; where, having put in 

the Essequibo. & 3 J .°. r 

the necessary articles for the expedition, not 
forgetting a couple of large shark-hooks, with chains 
attached to them, and a coil of strong new rope, I 
hoisted a little sail, which I had got made on purpose, 
and at six o'clock in the morning shaped our course for 
the river Essequibo. I had put a pair of shoes on to 
prevent the tar at the bottom of the canoe from sticking 
to my feet. The sun was naming hot, and from eleven 
o'clock till two beat perpendicularly upon the top of 
my feet, betwixt the shoes and the trowsers. Not feel- 
ing it disagreeable, or being in the least aware of painful 
consequences, as I had been barefoot for months, I neg- 
lected to put on a pair of short stockings which I had 
with me. I did not reflect, that sitting still in one 
place with your feet exposed to the sun was very 



184 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



different from being exposed to the sun while in 
motion. 

Suffers much We went ashore in the Essequibo, about 
feet n from ex- three o'clock in the afternoon, to choose a 
cessive heat. place for tl[1G n i g ]tf s res idenee, to collect 

fire-wood, and to set the fish-hooks. It was then that 
I first began to find my legs very painful : they soon 
became much inflamed, and red, and blistered ; and it 
required considerable caution not to burst the blisters, 
otherwise sores would have ensued. I immediately got 
into the hammock, and there passed a painful and 
sleepless night, and for two days after I was disabled 
from walking. 

About midnight, as I was lying awake, and in great 
,r. , . pain, I heard the Indian say, " Massa, massa, 

Visited in the r 7 m J 7 ■ m 9 

night by a Ja- you no hear tiger % " I listened attentively, 

guar Tiger. J & . \ 7 

and heard the softly-sounding tread of his 
feet as he approached us. The moon had gone down ; 
but every now and then we could get a glance of him 
by the light of our fire : he was the jaguar, for I could 
see the spots on his body. Had I wished to have fired 
at him, I was not able to take a sure aim, for I was in 
such pain that I could not turn myself in my hammock. 
The Indian would have fired, but I would not allow 
him to do so, as I wanted to see a little more of our 
new visitor ; for it is not every day or night that the 
traveller is favoured with an undisturbed sight of the 
jaguar in his own forests. 

Whenever the fire got low, the jaguar came a little 
nearer, and when the Indian renewed it, he retired 
abruptly : sometimes he would come within twenty 
yards, and then we had a view of him, sitting on his 
hind legs like a dog ; sometimes he moved slowly to 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



and fro, and at other times we could hear him mend 
his pace, as if impatient. At last the Indian, not 
relishing the idea of having such company in the 
neighbourhood, could contain himself no longer, and 
set up a most tremendous yell. The jaguar bounded 
off like a race-horse, and returned no more; it appeared, 
by the print of his feet the next morning, that he was 
a full-grown jaguar. 

In two days after this, we got to the first 

Reaches the 

Fails of the falls in the Essequibo. There was a superb 

Essequibo. . . 

barrier 01 rocks quite across the river. In 
the rainy season these rocks are for the most part under 
water ; but it being now dry weather, we had a fine 
view of them, while the water from the river above 
them rushed through the different openings in majestic 
grandeur. Here, on a little hill, jutting out into the 
river, stands the house of Mrs. Peterson, the last house 
of people of colour up this river ; I hired a negro from 
her, and a coloured man, who pretended that they knew 
the haunts of the cayman, and understood everything 
about taking him. We were a day in passing these 
falls and rapids, celebrated for the pacou, the richest 
and most delicious fish in Guiana. The coloured man 
was now in his element ; he stood in the head of the 
canoe, and with his bow and arrow shot the pacou as 
they were swimming in the stream. The arrow had 
scarcely left the bow before he had plunged headlong 
into the river, and seized the fish as it was struggling 
with it. He dived and swam like an otter, and rarely 
missed the fish he aimed at. 

Did my pen, gentle reader, possess descriptive 
powers, I would here give thee an idea of the enchant- 
ing scenery of the Essequibo ; but that not being the 



186 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



case, thou must be contented with a moderate and 
well-intended attempt. 

Nothing could be more lovely than the 
appearance of the forest on each side of this 
noble river. Hills rose on hills in fine gradation, all 
covered with trees of gigantic height and size. Here 
their leaves were of a lively purple, and there of the 
deepest green. Sometimes the Caracara extended its 
scarlet blossoms from branch to branch, and gave the 
tree the appearance as though it had been hung with 
garlands. 

This delightful scenery of the Essequibo made the 
soul overflow with joy, and caused you to rove in fancy 
through fairy-land ; till, on turning an angle of the 
river, you were recalled to more sober reflections on 
seeing the once grand and towering mora, now dead 
and ragged in its topmost branches, while its aged 
trunk, undermined by the rushing torrent, hung as 
though in sorrow over the river, which, ere long, would 
receive it, and sweep it away for ever. 

During the day, the trade- wind blew a gentle and 
refreshing breeze, which died away as the night set in, 
and then the river was as smooth as glass. 

The moon was within three days of being full, so 
that we did not regret the loss of the sun, which set 
in all its splendour. Scarce had he sunk behind the 
western hills, when the goatsuckers sent forth their 
soft and plaintive cries ; some often repeating, " Who 
are you — who, who, who are you V 1 and others, " Willy, 
Willy, Willy come go." 

The Indian and Daddy Quashi often shook their 
head at this, and said they were bringing talk from 
Yabahou, who is the evil spirit of the Essequibo. It 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



187 



was deliglitful to sit on the branch of a fallen tree, near 
the water's edge, and listen to these harmless birds as 
they repeated their evening song ; and watch the owls 
and vampires as they every now and then passed up 
and down the river. v 

The Cam- ^ ne nex ^ ^ a y> about noon, as we were 
panero. proceeding onwards, we heard the Campanero 
tolling in the depth of the forest. Though I should 
not then have stopped to dissect even a rare bird, 
having a greater object in view, still I could not resist 
the opportunity offered of acquiring the campanero. 
The place where he was tolling was low and swampy, 
and my legs not having quite recovered from the effects 
of the sun, I sent the Indian to shoot the campanero. 
He got up to the tree, which he described as very high, 
with a naked top, and situated in a swamp. He fired 
at the bird, but either missed it, or did not wound it 
sufficiently to bring it down. This was the only oppor- 
tunity I had of getting a campanero during this 
expedition. We had never heard one toll before this 
morning, and never heard one after. 

About an hour before sunset, we reached the place 
which a *the two men who had joined us at the Falls 
pointed out as a proper one to find a cayman. There 
was a large creek close by, and a sand-bank gently 
sloping to the water. Just within the forest on this 
bank, we cleared a place of brushwood, suspended the 
hammocks from the trees, and then picked up enough 
of decayed wood for fuel. 

The Indian found a large land-tortoise, and this, with 
plenty of fresh fish which we bad in the canoe, afforded 
a supper not to be despised. 

The tigers had kept up a continual roaring every 



188 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



night since we had entered the Essequibo. The sound 
was awfully fine. Sometimes it was in the immediate 
Roaring of neighbourhood ; at other times it was far 
the Tigers. off, and echoed amongst the hills like dis- 
tant thunder. 

It may, perhaps, not be amiss to observe here, that 
when the word Tiger is used, it does not mean the 
Bengal tiger. It means the Jaguar, whose skin is 
beautifully spotted, and not striped like that of the 
tiger in the East. It is, in fact, the tiger of the new 
world, and receiving the name of tiger from the dis- 
coverers of South America, it has kept it ever since. 
It is a cruel, strong, and dangerous beast, but not so 
courageous as the Bengal tiger. 

We now baited a shark-hook with a large fish, and 
put it upon a board about a yard long, and one foot 
broad, which we had brought on purpose. This board 
was carried out in the canoe, about forty yards into the 
river. By means of a string, long enough to reach the 
bottom of the river, and at the end of which string was 
fastened a stone, the board was kept, as it were, at 
anchor. One end of the new rope I had bought in 
town was reeved through the chain of the shark-hook, 
and the other end fastened to a tree on the sand-bank. 

It was now an hour .after sunset. The sky was 
cloudless, and the moon shone beautifully bright. 
There was not a breath of wind in the heavens, and 
the river seemed like a large plain of quicksilver. 
Every now and then a huge fish would strike and 
plunge in the water ; then the owls and goatsuckers 
would continue their lamentations, and the sound of 
these was lost in the prowling tiger's growl. Then all 
was still again and silent as midnight. 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



189 



The caynien were now upon the stir, and at in- 
tervals their noise could be distinguished amid that of 
Noise of the the J a g u ^ r > the owls? the goatsuckers, and 
daymen. frogs. It was a singular and awful sound. 
It was like a suppressed sigh, bursting forth all of a 
sudden, and so loud that you might hear it above a 
mile off. First one emitted this horrible noise, and 
then another answered ; and on looking at the counte- 
nances of the people round me, I could plainly see that 
they expected to have a cayman that night. 

We were at supper, when the Indian, who seemed to 
have had one eye on the turtle-pot and the other on 
the bait in the river, said he saw the cayman coming. 

Upon looking towards the place, there appeared 
something on the water like a black log of wood. It 
was so unlike anything alive, that I doubted if it were 
a cayman • but the Indian smiled, and said, he was 
sure it was one, for he remembered seeing a cayman, 
some years ago, when he was in the Essequibo. 

At last it gradually approached the bait, and the 
board began to move. The moon shone so bright, that 
we could distinctly see him open his huge jaws, and 
take in the bait. We pulled the rope. He imme- 
diately let drop the bait ; and then we saw his black 
head retreating from the board, to the distance of a 
few yards ; and there it remained quite motionless. 

He did not seem inclined to advance again ; and so 
we finished our supper. In about an hour's time he 
again put himself in motion, and took hold of the bait, 
But, probably suspecting that he had to deal with 
knaves and cheats, he held it in his mouth, but did not 
swallow it. We pulled the rope again, but with no 
better success than the first time. 



190 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



He retreated as usual, arid came back again in about 
an hour. We paid him every attention till three 
o'clock in the morning; when, worn out with disappoint- 
ment, we went to the hammocks, turned in, and fell 
asleep. 

When day broke, we found that he had contrived to 
get the bait from the hook, though we had tied it on 
with string. We had now no more hopes of taking a 
cayman till the return of night. The Indian took off 
into the woods, and brought back a noble supply of 
game. The rest of us went into the canoe, and pro- 
ceeded up the river to shoot fish. We got even more 
than we could use. 

As we approached the shallows, we could see the 
large sting-rays moving at the bottom. The coloured 
man never failed to hit them with his arrow. The 
weather was delightful. There was scarcely a cloud to 
intercept the sun's rays. 

I saw several scarlet aras, anihingas, and 
clucks, but could not get a shot at them. 
The parrots crossed the river in innumerable quantities, 
almost flying in pairs. Here, too, I saw the Sun-bird, 
called Tirana by the Spaniards in the Oroonoque, and 
shot one of them. The black and white scarlet-headed 
finch was very common here. I could never see this 
bird in the Demerara, nor hear of its being there. 

We at last came to a large sand-bank, probably two 
miles in circumference. As we approached it we could 
see two or three hundred fresh-water turtle on the edge 
of the bank. Ere we could get near enough to let fly 
an arrow at them, they had ail sunk into the river, and 
appeared no more. 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



191 



We went on the sand-bank to look for their nests, 
as this was the breeding season. The coloured man 

Turtles' showed us how to find them, Y/herever a 
nests. portion of the sand seemed smoother than 
the rest, there was sure to be a turtle's nest. On dig- 
ging down with our hands, about nine inches deep, we 
found from twenty to thirty white eggs ; in less than 
an hour we got above two hundred. Those which had 
a little black spot or two on the shell we ate the same 
day, as it was a sign that they were not fresh, and of 
course would not keep : those which had no speck 
were put into dry sand, and were good some weeks 
after. 

At midnight, two of our people went to this sand- 
bank, while the rest stayed to watch the cayman. The 
turtle had advanced on to the sand to lay their eggs, 
and the men got betwixt them and the water ; they 
brought off half a dozen very fine and well-fed turtle. 
The egg-shell of the fresh- water turtle is not hard, like 
that of the land-tortoise, but appears like white parch- 
ment, and gives way to the pressure of the fingers ; but 
it is very tough, and does not break. On this sand- 
bank, close to the forest, we found several guana's 
nests; but they had never more than fourteen eggs 
a-piece. Thus passed the day, in exercise and know- 
ledge, till the sun's declining orb reminded us it was 
time to return to the place from w T hence we had 
set out. 

The second night's attempt upon the cayman was a 
repetition of the first, quite unsuccessful. We went a 
fishing the day after, had excellent sport, and returned 
to experience a third night's disappointment. On the 
fourth evening, about four o'clock, we began to erect a 



192 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



stage amongst the trees, close to the water's edge. 
From this we intended to shoot an arrow into the 
cayman : at the end of this arrow was to be attached a 
string, which would be tied to the rope, and as soon as 
the cayman was struck, we were to have the canoe 
ready, and pursue him in the river. 

While we were busy in preparing the stage, a tiger 
began to roar. We judged by the sound that he was 
not above a quarter of a mile from us, and that he was 
close to the side of the river. Unfortunately, the 
Indian said it was not a jaguar that was roaring, but a 
couguar. The couguar is of a pale, brownish 
red colour, and not as large as the jaguar. 
As there was nothing particular in this animal, I 
thought it better to attend to the apparatus for catch- 
ing the cayman than to go in quest of the couguar. 
The people, however, went in the canoe to the place 
where the couguar was roaring. On arriving near the 
spot, they saw it was not a couguar, but an immense 
jaguar, standing on the trunk of an aged mora-tree, 
which bended over the river ; he growled and showed 
his teeth as they approached ; the coloured man fired 
at him with a ball, but probably missed him, and the 
tiger instantly descended, and took off into the woods, 
I went to the place before dark, and we searched the 
forest for about half a mile in the direction he had 
fled : but we could see no traces of him, or any marks 
of blood, so I concluded that fear had prevented the 
man from taking steady aim. 

We spent best part of the fourth night in trying for 
the cayman, but all to no purpose. I was now con- 
vinced that something was materially wrong. We ought 
to have been successful, considering our vigilance and 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



193 



attention, and that we had repeatedly seen the cayman. 
It was useless to tarry here any longer ; moreover, the 
coloured man began to take airs, and fancied that I could 
not do without him. I never admit of this 

Discharges . t 

the man of m any expedition where 1 am commander ; 

and so I convinced the man, to his sorrow, 
that I could do without liim ; for I paid him what I 
had agreed to give him, which amounted to eight 
dollars, and ordered him back in his own curial to 
Mrs. Peterson's, on the hill at the first falls. I then 
asked the negro if there were any Indian settlements 
in the neighbourhood ; he said he knew of one, a day 
and a half off. We went in quest of it, and about one 
o'clock the next day the negro showed us the creek 
where it was. 

The entrance was so concealed by thick bushes, that 
Beaches a a stranger would have passed it without 
Indian ^ knowing it to be a creek. In going up it we 
tiement. found it dark, winding, and intricate beyond 
any creek that I had ever seen before. When Orpheus 
came back with his young wife from Styx, his path must 
have been similar to this ; for Ovid says it was 

" Arduus, obliquus, caligine densus opaca;" 

and this creek was exactly so. 

When we had got about two-thirds up it, we met the 
Indians going a-fishing. I saw, by the way their things 
were packed in the curial, that they did not intend to 
return for some days. However, on telling them what 
we wanted, and by promising handsome presents of 
powder, shot, and hooks, they dropped their expedition, 
and invited us up to the settlement they had just left, 
and where we laid in a provision of cassava. 

o 



194 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



They gave us for dinner boiled ant-bear and red 
monkey; two dishes unknown even at Beau- 
villiers in Paris, or at a London city feast. 
The monkey was very good indeed, but the ant-bear 
had been kept beyond its time — it stunk as our venison 
does in England; and so, after tasting it, I preferred 
dining entirely on monkey. After resting here, we went 
back to the river. The Indians, three in number, ac- 
companied us in their own curial, and, on entering the 
river, pointed to a place, a little way above, well calcu- 
lated to harbour a cayman. The w r ater was deep and 
still, and flanked by an immense sand-bank ; there was 
also a little shallow creek close by. 

On this sand-bank, near the forest, the people made 
a shelter for the night. My own was already made ; for 
I always take with me a painted sheet, about twelve 
feet by ten. This, thrown over a pole, supported be- 
twixt two trees, makes you a capital roof with very 
little trouble. 

"We showed one of the Indians the shark-hook. He 
shook his head, and laughed at it, and said it would not 
do. When he was a boy, he had seen his father catch 
the caymen, and on the morrow he would make some- 
thing that would answer. 

In the mean time, we. set the shark-hook ; but it 
availed us nought : a cayman came and took it, but 
would not swallow it. Seeing it was useless to attend 
the shark-hook any longer, we left it for the night, and 
returned to our hammocks. 

Ere I fell asleep, a reflection or two broke in upon 
me. I considered that, as far as the judgment of civi- 
lized man went, everything had been procured and done 
to ensure success. We had hooks, and lines, and baits 



THIKD JOURNEY. 



195 



and patience ; we had spent nights in watching, had 
seen the cayman come and take the bait, and, after 
our expectations had been wound up to the highest 
pitch, all ended in disappointment. Probably this 
poor wild man of the woods would succeed by means 
of a very simple process, and thus prove to his 
more civilized brother that, notwithstanding books 
and schools, there is a vast deal of knowledge to be 
picked up at every step, whichever way we turn 
ourselves. 

In the morning, as usual, we found the bait gone 
from the shark-hook. The Indians went into the forest 
to hunt, and we took the canoe to shoot fish and get 
another supply of turtles' eggs, which we found in great 
abundance on this large sand-bank. 

We went to the little shallow creek, and shot some 
young caymen, about two feet long. It was astonishing 
to see what spite and rage these little things showed 
when the arrows struck them ; they turned round and 
bit it, and snapped at us when we went into the water 
to take them out. Daddy Quashi boiled one of them 
for his dinner, and found it very sweet and tender. I 
do not see why it should not be as good as frog or 
veal. 

The day was now declining apace, and the Indian 
had made his instrument to take the cayman. It was 
very simple. There were four pieces of tough hard 
wood, a foot long, and about as thick as your little 
linger, and barbed at both ends : they were tied round 
the end of the rope in such a manner that, if you con- 
ceive the rope to be an arrow, these four sticks would 
form the arrow's head; so that one end of the four 
united sticks answered to the point of the arrow-head, 

o2 



196 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



while the other end of the sticks expanded at equal 
distances round the rope ; thus — 




Xow, it is evident that if the cayman swallowed this 
(the other end of the rope, which was thirty yards long, 
being fastened to a tree), the more he pulled, the faster 
the barbs would stick into his stomach. This wooden 
hook, if you may so call it, was well baited with the 
flesh of the acouri, and the entrails were twisted round 
the rope for about a foot above it. 

Xearly a mile from where we had our hammocks the 
sand-bank was steep and abrupt, and the river very 
still and deep ; there the Indian pricked a stick into 
the sand. It was two feet long, and on its extremity 
was fixed the machine ; it hung suspended about a foot 
from the water, and the end of the rope was made fast 
to a stake driven well into the sand. 




i 



The Indian then took the empty shell of a land- 
tcrtoise, and gave it some heavy blows with an axe. I 
asked why he did that. He said it was to let the 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



197 



cayman hear that something was going on. In fact, 
the Indian meant it as the cayman's dinner-bell. 

Having done this, we went back to the hammocks, 
not intending to visit it again till morning. During 
the night, the jaguars roared and grumbled in the 
forest, as though the world was going wrong with them, 
and at intervals we could hear the distant caymen. 
The roaring of the jaguars was awful ; but it was music 
to the dismal noise of these hideous and malicious 
reptiles. 

About half-past five in the morning, the Indian 
stole off silently to take a look at the bait. 

Succeed m J 

hooking a On arriving at the place he set up a tremen- 

Cayman. o x 

dous shout. We all jumped out of our ham- 
mocks, and ran to him. The Indians got there before 
me, for they had no clothes to put on, and I lost two 
minutes in looking for my trousers, and in slipping 
into them. 

We found a cayman, ten feet and a half long, fast to 
the end of the rope. Nothing now remained to do but 
to get him out of the water without injuring his scales, 
" hoc opus, hie labor." We mustered strong : there 
were three Indians from the creek, there was my own 
Iadian (Yan), Daddy Quashi (the negro from Mrs. Pe- 
terson's), James (Mr. E. Edmonstone's man, whom I 
was instructing to preserve birds), and, lastly, myself. 

I informed the Indians that it was my intention to 
draw him quietly out of the water, and then secure 
him. They looked and stared at each other, and said 
I might do it myself, but they would have no hand in 
it ; the cayman would worry some of us. On saying 
this, " consedere duces," they squatted on their hams 
with the most perfect indifference. 



198 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



The Indians of these wilds have never been subject 
to the least restraint ; and I knew enough of them to 
be aware that if I tried to force them against their will, 
they would take off, and leave me and my presents 
unheeded, and never return. 

Daddy Quashi was for applying to our guns, as usual, 
considering them our best and safest friends. I imme- 
diately offered to knock him down for his cowardice, 
and he shrank back, begging that I would be cautious, 
and not get myself worried, and apologising for his own 
want of resolution. My Indian was now in conversa- 
tion with the others, and they asked me if I would 
allow them to shoot a dozen arrows into him, and thus 
disable him. This would have ruined all. I had come 
above three hundred miles on purpose to get a cayman 
uninjured, and not to carry back a mutilated specimen. 
I rejected their proposition with firmness, and darted a 
disdainful eye upon the Indians. 

Daddy Quashi was again beginning to remonstrate, 
and I chased him on the sand-bank for a quarter of 
a mile. He told me afterwards he thought he should 
have dropped down dead with fright, for he was firmly 
persuaded, if I had caught him, I should have bundled 
him into the cayman's jaws. Here, then, we stood in 
silence, like a calm before a thunder-storm. " Hoc res 
summa loco. Scinditur in contraria vulgus." They 
wanted to kill him, and I wanted to take him alive. 

I now walked up and down the sand, revolving a 
dozen projects in my head. The canoe was at a con- 
siderable distance, and I ordered the people to bring it 
round to the place where we were. The mast was 
eight feet long, and not much thicker than my wrist. 
I took it out of the canoe, and wrapped the sail round 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



199 



the end of it. Now, it appeared clear to me that if I 
went down upon one knee, and held the mast in the 
s-ame position as the soldier holds his bayonet when 
rushing to the charge, I could force it down the cay- 
man's throat, should he come open-mouthed at me. 
When this was told to the Indians, they brightened 
up, and said they would help me to pull him out of 
the river. 

"Brave squad ! " said I to myself, " 'Audax omnia 
perpeti,' now that you have got me betwixt 

ir rep are to 

take the Cay- yourselves and danger." I then mustered all 

man alive. 

hands for the last time before the battle. 
We were, four South American savages^ two negroes 
<from Africa, a Creole from Trinidad, and myself, a 
white man from Yorkshire ; in fact, a little Tower 
of Babel group, in dress, no dress, address, and lan- 
guage. 

Daddy Quashi hung in the rear ; I showed him a 
large Spanish knife, which I always carried in the 
waistband of my trousers : it spoke volumes to him, 
and he shrugged up his shoulders in absolute despair. 
The sun was just peeping over the high forests on the 
eastern hills, as if coming to look on, and bid Us act 
with becoming fortitude. I placed all the people at 
the end of the rope, and ordered them to pull till the 
cayman appeared on the surface of the water; and 
then, should he plunge, to slacken the rope and let him 
go again into the deep. 

I now took the mast of the canoe in my hand (the 
sail being tied round the end of the mast), and sunk 
down upon one knee, about four yards from the water's 
edge, determining to thrust it down his throat, in case 
he gave me an opportunity. I certainly felt somewhat 



200 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



uncomfortable in this situation, and I thought of Cer- 
berus on the other side of the Styx ferry. The people 
pulled the cayman to the surface ; he plunged furiously 
as soon as he arrived in these upper regions, and imme- 
diately went below again on their slackening the rope. 
I saw enough not to fall in love at first sight. I now 
told them we would run all risks, and have him on 
land immediately. They pulled again, and out he 
came, — " monstrum horrendum, informe." This was 
an interesting moment. I kept my position firmly, 
with my eye fixed stedfastly on him. 

By the time the cayman was within two yards of 
me, I saw he was in a state of fear and perturbation ; I 
instantly dropped the mast, sprung up, and jumped on 
his back, turning half round as I vaulted, so that I 
gained my seat with my face in a right position. I 
immediately seized his fore-legs, and, by main force, 
twisted them on his back: thus they served me for 
a bridle. 

He now seemed to have recovered from his surprise, 
and, probably fancying himself in hostile company, he 
begun to plunge furiously, and lashed the sand with 
his long and powerful tail. I was out of reach of the 
strokes of it, by being near his head. He continued 
to plunge and strike, and made my seat very uncom- 
fortable. It must have been a fine sight for an un- 
occupied spectator. 

The people roared out in triumph, and were so voci- 
ferous, that it was some time before they heard me tell 
them to pull me and my beast of burthen further inland. 
I was apprehensive the rope might break, and then there 
would have been every chance of going down to the 
regions under water with the cayman. That would 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



201 



have been more perilous than Arion's marine morning 
ride : — 

" Delphini insidens vada cserula sulcat Arion." 

The people now dragged us about forty yards on the 
sand : it was the first and last time I was ever on a cay- 
man's back. Should it be asked, how I managed to keep 
my seat, I would answer, — I hunted some years with 
Lord Darlington's fox hounds. 

After repeated attempts to regain his liberty, the cay- 
man gave in, and became tranquil through exhaustion. 
I now managed to tie up his jaws, and firmly secured 
his fore-feet in the position I had held them. We had 
now another severe struggle for superiority, but he was 
soon overcome, and again remained quiet. While some 
of the people were pressing upon his head and shoulders, 
I threw myself on his tail, and by keeping it down to 
the sand, prevented him from kicking up another dust. 
He was finally conveyed to the canoe, and then to the 
place where we had suspended our hammocks. There 
I cut his throat ; and after breakfast was over, com- 
menced the dissection. 

ISTow that the affray had ceased, Daddy Quashi played 
a good finger and thumb at breakfast ; he said he found 
himself much revived, and became very talkative and 
useful, as there was no longer any danger. He was a 
faithful, honest negro. His master, my worthy friend 
Mr. Edmonstone, had been so obliging as to send out 
particular orders to the colony, that the Daddy should 
attend me all the time I was in the forest. He had lived 
in the wilds of Demerara with Mr. Edmonstone for 
many years ; and often amused me with the account of 
the frays his master had had in the woods with snakes, 
wild beasts, and runaway negroes. Old age was now 



202 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



coming fast upon Mm ; he had been an able fellow in 
his younger days, and a gallant one too, for he had a 
large sear over his eyebrow, caused by the stroke of a 
cutlass, from another negro, while the Daddy was 
engaged in an intrigue. 

The back of ^he back of the cayman may be said to be 
the Cayman. a i mos t impenetrable to a musket ball, but 
his sides are not near so strong, and are easily pierced 
with an arrow ; indeed, were they as strong as the back 
and the belly, there would be no part of the cayman's 
body soft and elastic enough to admit of expansion after 
taking in a supply of food. 

The cayman has no grinders ; his teetli 
are entirely made for snatch and swallow ; 
there are thirty-two in each jaw. Perhaps no animal in 
existence bears more decided marks in his countenance 
of cruelty and malice than the cayman. He is the 
scourge and terror of all the large rivers in South 
America near the line. 

One Sunday evening, some years ago, as I was walk- 
ing with Don Felipe de Ynciarte, governor 

-A.HGCCl.otjG 

of Angustura, on the bank of the Oroonoque, 
" Stop here a minute or two, Don Carlos," said he to 
me, " while I recount a sad accident. One fine evening, 
last year, as the people of Angustura were sauntering up 
and down here, in the Alameda, I was within twenty 
yards of this place, when I saw a large cayman rush out 
of the river, seize a man, and carry him down, before 
anybody had it in his power to assist him. The screams 
of the poor fellow were terrible as the cayman was run- 
ning off with him. He plunged into the river with his 
prey ; we instantly lost sight of him, and never saw or 
heard him more." 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



203 



I was a day and a half in dissecting our cayman, and 
then we all got ready to return to Demerara. 

It was much more perilous to descend than to ascend 
the falls in the Essequibo. 

Great danger The place we had to pass had proved fatal 
thSisofthf ^° ^ our Indians about a month before. The 
Esseqmbo. wa ter foamed, and dashed, and boiled amongst 
the steep and craggy rocks, and seemed to warn us to 
be careful how we ventured there. 

I was for all hands to get out of the canoe, and then, 
after lashing a long rope ahead and astern, we might 
have climbed from rock to rock, and tempered her in 
her passage down, and our getting out would have 
lightened her much. But the negro who had joined 
us at Mrs. Peterson's said he was sure it would be safer 
to stay in the canoe while she went down the fall. I 
was loth to give way to him ; but I did so this time 
against my better judgment, as he assured me that he 
was accustomed to pass and repass these falls. 

Accordingly we determined to push down : I was at 
the helm, the rest at their paddles. But before we got 
half-way through, the rushing waters deprived the canoe 
of all power of steerage, and she became the sport of the 
torrent ; in a second she was half full of water, and I 
cannot comprehend to this day why she did not go 
down ; luckily the people exerted themselves to the 
utmost, she got headway, and they pulled through the 
whirlpool ; I being quite in the stern of the canoe, part 
of a wave struck me, and nearly knocked me overboard. 

We now paddled to some rocks at a distance, got out, 
unloaded the canoe, and dried the cargo in the sun, 
which was very hot and powerful. Had it been the wet 
season, almost everything would have been spoiled, 



204 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



After this, the voyage down the Essequibo was quick 
and pleasant till we reached the sea-coast : there we had 
a trying day of it ; the wind was dead against us, and 
the sun remarkably hot ; we got twice aground upon a 
mud-flat, and were twice obliged to get out, up to the 
middle in mud, to shove the canoe through it. Half-way 
betwixt the Essequibo and Demerara the tide of flood 
caught us ; and after the utmost exertions, it was half- 
past six in the evening before we got to George-town. 

Reaches We had been out from six in the morning 
George-town. j n an p en canoe on the sea-coast, without 

umbrella or awning, exposed all day to the fiery rays of 
a tropical sun. My face smarted so that I could get no 
sleep during the night, and the next morning my lips 
were all in blisters. The Indian Yan went down to the 
Essequibo a copper colour, but the reflection of the sun 
from the sea, and from the sand-banks in the river, had 
turned him nearly black. He laughed at himself, and 
said the Indians in the Demerara would not know him 
again. I stayed one day in George-town, and then set 
off the next morning for head-quarters in Mibiri creek, 
where I finished the cayman. 

Here the remaining time was spent in collecting birds, 
and in paying particular attention to their haunts and 
economy. The rainy season having set in, the weather 
became bad and stormy ; the lightning and thunder 
were incessant : the days cloudy, and the nights cold 
and misty. I had now been eleven months in the 
forests, and collected some rare insects, two hundred 
and thirty birds, two land tortoises, five armadillos, two 
large serpents, a sloth, an ant-bear, and a cayman. 

I left the wilds and repaired to George-town to spend 
a few days with Mr. E. Edmonstone previous to embark- 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



205 



ing for Europe. I must here return my sincerest thanks 
to this worthy gentleman for his many kindnesses to 
me ; his friendship was of the utmost service to me, 
and he never failed to send me supplies into the forest 
by every opportunity. 

Embarks for I embarked for England, on board the 
England. j^ ee West-Jndiaman, commanded by Cap- 
tain Grey. 

Sir Joseph Banks had often told me, he hoped I 
would give a lecture in public, on the new mode I had 
discovered of preparing specimens in natural history for 
museums. I always declined to do so, as I despaired 
of ever being able to hit upon a proper method of doing 
quadrupeds ; and I was aware that it would have been 
an imperfect lecture to treat of birds only. I imparted 
what little knowledge I was master of, at Sir Joseph's, 
to the unfortunate gentleman who went to Africa to 
explore the Congo ; and that was all that took place in 
the shape of a lecture. Xow that I had hit upon the 
way of doing quadrupeds, I drew up a little plan on 
board the Dee, which I trusted would have been of 
service to naturalists ; and by proving to them the 
superiority of the new plan, they would probably be in- 
duced to abandon the old and common way, which is a 
disgrace to the present age, and renders hideous every 
specimen in every museum that I have as yet visited, 
I intended to have given three lectures : one on insects 
and serpents ; one on birds ; and one on quadrupeds. 
But as it will be shortly seen, this little plan was 
doomed not to be unfolded to public view. Illiberality 
blasted it in the bud. 

We had a pleasant passage across the Atlantic, and 
arrived in the Mersey in fine trim and good spirits. 



206 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



Great was the attention I received from the commander 
of the Bee. He and his mate, Mr. Spence, took every 
care of my collection. 

Arrives at On our landing, the gentlemen of the 
Liverpool. Liverpool Custom-house received me as an 
old friend and acquaintance, and obligingly offered 
their services. 

Twice before had I landed in Liverpool, and twice 
had I reason to admire their conduct and liberality. 
They knew I was incapable of trying to introduce any- 
thing contraband, and they were aware that I never 
dreamed of turning to profit the specimens I had pro- 
cured. They considered that I had left a comfortable 
home in quest of science ; and that I had wandered into 
far-distant climes, and gone barefooted, ill clothed, and 
ill fed, through swamps and woods, to procure speci- 
mens, some of which had never been seen in Europe. 
They considered that it would be difficult to fix a price 
upon specimens which had never been bought or sold, 
and which never were to be, as they were intended to 
ornament my own house. It was hard, they said, to 
have exposed myself, for years, to danger, and then be 
obliged to pay on return to my native land. Under 
these considerations, they fixed a moderate duty, which 
satisfied all parties. 

However, this last expedition ended not so. It taught 
me how hard it is to learn the grand lesson, "iEquarn 
memento rebus in arduis, servare mentem." 

But my good friends in the Custom-house of Liver- 
pool were not to blame. On the contrary, they did all 
in their power to procure balm for me instead of rue. 
But it would not answer. 

They appointed a very civil officer to attend me to 



THIRD JOURNEY. 



207 



the ship. While we were looking into some of the 
boxes, to see that the specimens were properly stowed, 
previous to their being conveyed to the king's depot, 
another officer entered the cabin. He was an entire 
stranger to me, and seemed wonderfully aware of his 
own consequence. Without preface or apology, he 
thrust his head over my shoulder, and said, we had no 
business to have opened a single box without his per- 
mission. I answered, they had been opened almost 
every day since they had come on board, and that I 
considered there was no harm in doing so. 

He then left the cabin, and I said to myself as he 
went out, I suspect I shall see that man again at Phi- 
lippi. The boxes, ten in number, were conveyed in 
safety from the ship to the depot. I then proceeded 
to the Custom-house. The necessary forms were gone 
through, and a proportionate duty, according to circum- 
stances, was paid. 

This done, we returned from the Custom-house to the 
depot, accompanied by several gentlemen who wished 
to see the collection. They expressed themselves highly 
gratified. The boxes were closed, and nothing now re- 
mained but to convey them to the cart, which was in 
attendance at the door of the depot. Just as one of the 
inferior officers was carrying a box thither, in stepped 
the man whom I suspected I should see again at Phi- 
lippi. He abruptly declared himself dissatisfied with 
the valuation which the gentlemen of the customs had 
put upon the collection, and said he must detain it. 
I remonstrated, but it was all in vain. 

After this pitiful stretch of power, and bad compli- 
ment to the other officers of the customs, who had been 
satisfied with the valuation, this man had the folly to 



208 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



take me aside, and after assuring me that he had a great 
regard for the arts and sciences, he lamented that con- 
science obliged him to do what he had done, and he 
wished he had been fifty miles from Liverpool at the 
time that it fell to his lot to detain the collection. Had 
he looked in my face as he said this, he would have 
seen no marks of credulity there. 

I now returned to the Custom-house, and after ex- 
pressing my opinion of the officer's conduct at the depot, 
I pulled a bunch of keys (which belonged to the 
detained boxes) out of my pocket, laid them on the 
table, took my leave of the gentlemen present, and soon 
after set off for Yorkshire. 

I saved nothing from the grasp of the stranger officer 
but a pair of live Malay fowls, which a gentleman in 
George-town had made me a present of. I had collected 
in the forest several eggs of curious birds, in hopes of 
introducing the breed into England, and had taken great 
pains in doing them over with gum arabic, and in pack- 
ing them in charcoal, according to a receipt I had seen 
in the Gazette, from the "Edinburgh Philosophical 
Journal." Eut these were detained in the depot, instead 
of being placed under a hen ; which utterly ruined all 
my hopes of rearing a new species of birds in England. 
Titled personages in London interested themselves in 
behalf of the collection, but all hi vain. And vain also 
were the public and private representations of the first 
officer of the Liverpool Custom-house in my favour. 

At last there came an order from the Treasury to say, 
that any specimens Mr. Waterton intended to present 
to public institutions might pass duty free ; but those 
which he intended to keep for himself must pay 
the duty ! 



THIED JOURNEY. 



209 



A friend now wrote to me from Liverpool, requesting 
that I would come over and pay the duty, in order to 
.save the collection, which had just been detained there 
six weeks. I did so. On paying an additional duty 
{for the moderate duty first imposed had already been 
paid), the man who had detained the collection delivered 
it up to me, assuring me that it had been well taken 
care of, and that a fire had been frequently made in the 
room. It is but justice to add, that on opening the 
boxes, there was nothing injured. 

I could never get a clue to these harsh and unex- 
pected measures, except that there had been some recent 
smuggling discovered in Liverpool ; and that the man 
in question had been sent down from London to act the 
part of Argus. If so, I landed in an evil hour : " nefasto 
die;" making good the Spanish proverb, " Pagan a las 
veces, justos por pecadores :" At times the innocent 
suffer for the guilty. After all, a little encouragement, 
in the shape of exemption from paying the duty on this 
collection, might have been expected ; but it turned out 
otherwise ; and after expending large sums in pursuit of 
natural history, on my return home I was doomed to 
pay for my success :— 

" Hie finis Caroli fatorum, hie exitus ilium 
Sorte tulit!" 

Thus, my fleece, already ragged and torn with the 
thorns and briers which one must naturally expect to 
find in distant and untrodden wilds, was shorn, I may 
say, on its return to England. 

However, this is nothing new; Sancho 
Panza must have heard of similar cases ; for 
he says, " Muchos van por lana, y vuelven trasquilados :" 
Many go for wool, and come home shorn. In order to 

p 



210 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



pick up matter for natural history, I have wandered 
through the wildest parts of South America's equatorial 
regions. I have attacked and slain a modern Python, 
and rode on the back of a cayman close to the water's 
edge; a very different situation from that of a Hyde-park 
dandy on his Sunday prancer before the ladies. Alone 
and barefoot I have pulled poisonous snakes out of their 
lurking-places ) climbed up trees to peep into holes for 
bats and vampires, and for days together hastened 
through sun and rain to the thickest parts of the forest 
to procure specimens I had never got before. In fine, 
I have pursued the wild beasts over hill and dale, 
through swamps and quagmires, now scorched by the 
noon-day sun, now drenched by the pelting shower, and 
returned to the hammock, to satisfy the cravings of 
hunger, often on a poor and scanty supper. 

These vicissitudes have turned to chestnut hue a once 
English complexion, and changed the colour of my hair, 
before father Time had meddled with it. The detention 
of the collection after it had fairly passed the Customs, 
and the subsequent order from the Treasury that I 
should pay duty for the specimens, unless they were 
presented to some public institution, have cast a damp 
upon my energ}^, and forced, as it were, the cup of Lethe 
to my lips, by drinking which I have forgot my former 
intention of giving a lecture in public on preparing spe- 
cimens to adorn museums. In fine, it is this ungenerous 
treatment that has paralysed my plans, and caused me 
to give up the idea I once had of inserting here the 
newly discovered mode of preparing quadrupeds and 
serpents ; and without it, the account of this last expedi- 
tion to the wilds of Guiana is nothing but a— fragment. 

Farewell, Gentle Eeader. 



FOURTH JOURNEY. 



211 



FOURTH JOURNEY. 



" Nunc hue, nunc illuc et utrinque sine ordine curro." 



Courteous reader, when I bade thee last farewell, I 
thought these wanderings were brought to a final close ; 
afterwards I often roved in imagination through distant 
countries famous for natural history, but felt no strong 
inclination to go thither, as the last adventure had ter- 
minated in such unexpected vexation. The departure 
of the cuckoo and swallow, and summer birds of passage, 
for warmer regions, once so interesting to me, now 
scarcely caused me to turn my face to the south ; and I 
continued in this cold and dreary climate for three years. 
During this period, I seldom or ever mounted my hobby- 
horse \ indeed it may be said, with the old song — 

" The saddle and bridle were laid on the shelf," 

and only taken down once, on the night that I was in- 
duced to give a lecture in the Philosophical Hall of 
Leeds. A little after this, W ilson's " Ornithology of 
the United States " fell into my hands. 

Sails for Tne desire I had of seeing that country, 
New York, together with the animated description which 
Wilson had given of the birds, fanned up the almost 
expiring flame. I forgot the vexations already alluded 
to, and set off for New York, in the beautiful packet 
John Wells, commanded by Captain Harris. The passage 
was long and cold ; but the elegant accommodations on 

p 2 



212 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



board, and the polite attention of the commander, ren- 
dered it very agreeable ; and I landed, in health and 
merriment, in the stately capital of the Xew World. 

We will soon pen down a few remarks on this magni- 
ficent city, but not just now. I want to venture into 
the north-west country, and get to their great canal, 
which the world talks so much about, though I fear it 
will be hard work to make one's way through bugs, 
bears, brutes, and buffaloes, which we Europeans imagine 
are so frequent and ferocious in these never-ending 
western wilds. 

I left ]N~ew York on a fine morning in July, 

Leaves New . 

York for Ai- wn.th.out one letter of introduction, for the 
city of Albany, some hundred and eighty 
miles up the celebrated Hudson. I seldom care about 
letters of introduction, for I am one of those who depend 
much upon an accidental acquaintance. Full many a 
face do I see, as I go wandering up and down the world, 
whose mild eye, and sweet and placid features, seem to 
beckon to me, and say, as it w T ere, " Speak but civilly 
to me, and I will do what I can for you." Such a face 
as this is worth more than a dozen letters of introduc- 
tion ; and such a face, gentle reader, I found on board 
the steam-boat from Xew York to the city of Albany. 

There w^as a great number of v r ell-dressed ladies and 
gentlemen in the vessel, all entire strangers to me. I 
fancied I could see several, whose countenances invited 
an unknown wanderer to come and take a seat beside 
them ; but there was one who encouraged me more than 
the rest. I saw clearly that he was an American, and 
I judged by his manners and appearance that he had 
not spent all his time upon his native soil. I was right 
in this conjecture, for he afterwards told me that he had 



FOURTH JOURNEY. 



213 



been in France and England. I saluted him as one 
stranger gentleman ought to salute another when he 
wants a little information ; and soon after, I dropped in 
a word or two by which he might conjecture that I was 
a foreigner ; but I did not tell him so : I wished him 
to make the discovery himself. 

He entered into conversation with the openness and 
candour which is so remarkable in the American ; and 
in a little time observed that he presumed I was from 
the old country. I told him that I was, and added, 
that I was an entire stranger on board. I saw his eye 
brighten up at the prospect he had of doing a fellow- 
creature a kind turn or two, and he completely won my 
regard by an affability which I shall never forget. This 
obliging gentleman pointed out everything that was 
grand and interesting as the steam-boat plied her course 
up the majestic Hudson. Here the Catskill mountains 
raised their lofty summit ; and there the hills came 
sloping down to the water's edge. Here he pointed to 
an aged and venerable oak, which having escaped the 
levelling axe of man, seemed almost to defy the blasting 
storm, and desolating hand of time ; and there, he bade 
me observe an extended tract of wood, by which I might 
form an idea how rich and grand the face of the country 
had once been. Here it was that, in the great and 
momentous struggle, the colonists lost the day ; and 
there they carried all before them : — 

' ' They closed full fast, on every side 
No slackness there was found ; 
And many a gallant gentleman 
Lay gasping on the ground." 

Here, in fine, stood a noted regiment; there, moved 
their great captain ; here, the fleets fired their broad- 



214 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



sides; and there, the whole force rushed on to 
battle : — 

" Hie Dolopum rnanus, hie magmis tenebat Achilles, 
Classibus hie locus, hie aeies certare solebat." 

At tea-time we ook our -, ea ogetner, and the next 
morning this worthy American walked up with me to 
the inn in Albany, shook me by the hand, and then 
went his way. I bade him farewell, and again farewell, 
and hoped that fortune might bring us together again 
once more. Possibly she may yet do so ; and should it 
be in England, I will take him to my house, as an old 
friend and acquaintance, and offer him my choicest 
cheer. This excellent gentleman lived in New York, 
and his name was William Tyas. 

The great ^ is at Albany that the great canal opens 
canal. into the Hudson, and joins the waters of 

this river to those of Lake Erie. The Hudson, at the 
city of Albany, is distant from Lake Erie about 360 
miles. The level of the lake is 564 feet higher than the 
Hudson, and there are eighty-one locks on the canal. 
It is to the genius and perseverance of De Witt Clinton 
that the United States owe the almost incalculable 
advantages of this inland navigation. " Exegit monu- 
mentum sere perennius." You may either go along it 
all the way to Buffalo, on, Lake Erie, or by the stage ; 

or sometimes on one and then in the other, 

Scenery 

just as you think fit. Grand, indeed, is the 
scenery by either route, and capital the accommodations. 
Cold and phlegmatic must he be who is not warmed 
into admiration by the surrounding scenery, and 
charmed with the affability of the travellers he meets 
on the way. 

This is now the season of roving, and joy and merri- 



FOURTH JOURNEY. 



215 



ment for the gentry of this happy country. Thousands 
are on the move, from different parts of the Union, for 
the springs and lakes, and the falls of Magara. There 
is nothing haughty or forbidding in the Americans ; 
and wherever you meet them, they appear to be quite 
at home. This is exactly what it ought to be, and very 
much in favour of the foreigner who journey famongs 
them. The immense number of highly polished females 
who go in the stages to visit the different places of 
amusement, and see the stupendous natural curiosities 
of this extensive country, incontestably proves that 
safety and convenience are ensured to them, and that 
the most distant attempt at rudeness would, by com- 
mon consent, be immediately put down. 

By the time I had got to Schenectady, I began 
strongly to suspect that I had come into the wrong 
country to look for bugs, bears, brutes, and buffaloes. 
It is an enchanting journey from Albany to Schenec- 
tady, and from thence to Lake Erie. The situation of 
the city of Utica is particularly attractive ; the Mohawk 
running close by it, the fertile fields and woody moun- 
tains, and the falls of Trenton, forcibly press the stran- 
ger to stop a day or two here, before he proceeds 
onward to the lake. 

At some far-distant period, when it will not be pos- 
sible to find the place where many of the celebrated 
cities of the East once stood, the world will have to 
thank the United States of America for bringing their 
names into the western regions. It is, indeed, a pretty 
thought of these people to give to their rising towns 
the names of places so famous and conspicuous in 
former times. 

As I was sitting one evening under an oak, in the 



216 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



high grounds behind Utica, I coidd not look down 
upon the city without thinking of Cato and his mis- 
fortunes. Had the town been called Crofton, or Warm- 
field, or Dewsbury, there would have been nothing 
remarkable in it ; but Utica at once revived the scenes 
at school long past and half forgotten, and carried me 
with full speed back again to Italy, and from thence to 
Africa. I crossed the Rubicon with Csesar ; fought at 
Pharsalia ; saw poor Pompey into Larissa, and tried to 
wrest the fatal sword from Cato's hand in Utica. "When 
I perceived he was no more, I mourned over the noble- 
minded man who took that part which he thought 
would most benefit his country. There is something 
magnificent in the idea of a man taking by choice 
the conquered side. The Eoman gods themselves did 
otherwise. 

" Victrix causa Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni." 

" In this did Cato with the Gods divide, 
They chose the conquering, he the conquer'd side." 

The whole of the country from Utica to Buffalo is 
Face of the pleasing ; and the intervening of the inland 
country. lakes, large and deep and clear, adds consi- 
derably to the effect. The spacious size of the inns, 
their excellent provisions, and the attention which the 
traveller receives in going from Albany to Buffalo, must 
at once convince him that this country is very much 
visited by strangers • and he will draw the conclusion 
that there must be something in it uncommonly in- 
teresting to cause so many travellers to pass to and fro. 

Mature is losing fast her ancient garb, and putting 
on a new dress in these extensive regions. Most of 
the stately timber has been carried away ; thousands of 
trees are lying prostrate on the ground ; while meadows, 



FOURTH JOURNEY. 



217 



corn-fields, villages, and pastures are ever and anon 
bursting upon the traveller's view as lie journeys on 
through the remaining tracts of wood. I wish I could 
say a word or two for the fine timber which is yet 
standing. Spare it-, gentle inhabitants, for your country's 
sake ; these noble sons of the forest beautify your land- 
scapes beyond all description ; when they are gone, a 
century will not replace their loss ; they cannot, they 
must not fall ; their vernal bloom, their summer rich- 
ness, and autumnal tints, please and refresh the eye 
of man ; and even when the days of joy and warmth 
are fled, the wintry blast soothes the listening ear with 
a sublime and pleasing melancholy as it howls through 
their naked branches. 

" Around me trees unnumber'd rise, 
Beautiful in various dyes : 
The gloomy pine, the poplar blue, 
The yellow beech, the sable yew ; 
The slender iir, that taper grows, 
The sturdy oak, with broad-spread boughs." 

A few miles before you reach Buffalo, the road is low 
and bad, and, in stepping out of the stage, I sprained 
my foot very severely ; it swelled to a great size, and 
caused me many a day of pain and mortification, as 
will be seen in the sequel. 

Buffalo looks down on Lake Erie, and 

Buffalo. p 0Ssesses a fi ne an( i commodious inn. At a 

little distance is the Black Eock, and there you pass 
over to the Canada side. , A stage is in waiting to convey 
you some sixteen or twenty miles down to the Falls. 
Long before you reach the spot you hear the mighty 
roar of waters, and see the spray of the far-famed Falls 
of Niagara, rising up like a column to the heavens, and 
mingling with the passing clouds. 



218 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



At this stupendous cascade of nature, the waters of 
the lake fall one hundred and seventy- six 
Niagara. ° f f ee ^ perpendicular. It has been calculated, 
I forget by whom, that the quantity of 
water discharged down this mighty fall, is six hundred 
and seventy thousand two hundred and fifty-five tons 
per minute. There are two large inns on the Canada 
side ; but, after you have satisfied your curiosity in 
viewing the Falls, and in seeing the rainbow in the 
foam far below where you are standing, do not, I 
pray you, tarry long at either of them. Cross over 
to the American side, and there you will find a 
spacious inn, which has nearly all the attractions; 
there you meet with great attention, and every accom- 
modation. 

The day is passed in looking at the Falls, and in 
sauntering up and down the wooded and rocky environs 
of the Niagara ; and the evening is often enlivened by 
the merry dance. 

Words can hardly do justice to the unaf- 

American footed ease and elegance of the American 

ladies. ° 

ladies who visit the Falls of Niagara. The 
traveller need not rove in imagination through Circassia 
in search of fine forms, or through England, France, 
and Spain, to meet with polished females. The 
numbers who are continually arriving from all parts of 
the Union confirm the justness of this remark. 

I was looking one evening at a dance, being unable 
to join in it on account of the accident I had received 
near Buffalo, when a young American entered the 
ball-room with such a becoming air and grace, that it 
was impossible not to have been struck with her 
appearance. 



FOURTH JOURNEY. 219 

" Her bloom was like the springing flower 
That sips the silver dew, 
The rose was budded in her cheek, 
Just opening to the view." 

I could not help feeling a wish to know where she had 

" Into such beauty spread, and blown so fair." 

Upon inquiry, I found that she was from the city of 
Albany. The more I looked at the fair Albanese, the 
more I was convinced, that in the United States of 
America may be found grace and beauty and symmetry 
equal to anything in the Old World. 

I now for good and all (and well I might) gave up 
the idea of finding bugs, bears, brutes, and buffaloes in 
this country, and was thoroughly satisfied that I had 
laboured under a great mistake in suspecting that I 
should ever meet with them. 

I wished to join in the dance where the fair Albanese 
was " to brisk notes in cadence beating," but the state 
of my unlucky foot rendered it impossible ; and as I 
sat with it reclined upon a sofa, full many a passing 
gentleman stopped to inquire the cause of my misfor- 
tune, presuming at the same time that I had got an 
attack of gout. Now this surmise of theirs always 
mortified me ; for I never had a fit of gout in my life, 
and, moreover, never expect to have one. 

In many of the inns of the United States, there is an 
album on the table, in which travellers insert their 
arrival and departure, and now and then indulge in a 
little flash or two of wit. 

I thought, under existing circumstances, that there 
would be no harm in briefly telling my misadventure ; 
and so, taking up the pen, I wrote what follows ; and 
was never after asked a single question about the gout. 

"C. Waterton, of Walton-hall, in the county of 



220 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



York, England, arrived at the Falls of Niagara, in 
July, 1824, and begs leave to pen down the following 
dreadful accident : — 

" He sprain' d his foot, and hurt his toe, 
On the rough road near Buffalo. 
It quite distresses him to stagger a- 
Long the sharp rocks of famed Niagara. 
So thus he's doomed to drink the measure 
Of pain, in lieu of that of pleasure. 
On Hope's delusive pinions borne, 
He came for wool and goes hack shorn. 
N.B. — Here he alludes to nothing but 
Th' adventure of his toe and foot ; 
Save this, — he sees all that which can 
Delight and charm the soul of man, 
But feels it not, — because his toe 
And foot together plague him so." 

I remember once to have sprained my ankle very 
violently many years ago, and that the doctor ordered 
me to hold it under the pump two or three times a day. 
Now, in the United States of America, all is upon a 
grand scale, except taxation ; and I am convinced that 
the traveller's ideas become much more enlarged as he 
journeys through the country. This being the case, 
I can easily account for the desire I felt to hold my 
sprained foot under the fall of Niagara. I descended 
the winding staircase which has been made for the ac- 
commodation of travellers, and then hobbled on to the 
scene of action. As I heM my leg under the fall, I 
tried to meditate on the immense difference there was 
betwixt a house-pump and this tremendous cascade of 
nature, and what effect it might have upon the sprain ; 
but the magnitude of the subject was too overwhelming, 
and I was obliged to drop it. 

Perhaps, indeed, there was an unwarrantable tincture 
of vanity in an unknown wanderer wishing to have it 
in his power to tell the world, that he had held his 



FOURTH JOURNEY. 



221 



sprained foot under a fall of water, which discharges 
six hundred and seventy thousand two hundred and 
fifty-five tons per minute. A gentle purling stream 
would have suited better. [Now, it would have become 
Washington to have quenched his battle-thirst in the 
fall of Niagara ; and there was something royal in the 
idea of Cleopatra drinking pearl-vinegar, made from 
the grandest pearl in Egypt ; and it became Caius 
Marius to send word that he was sitting upon the ruins 
of Carthage. Here, we have the person suited to the 
thing, and the thing to the person. 

If, gentle reader, thou wouldst allow me to indulge 
a little longer in this harmless pen-errantry, I would 
tell thee, that I have had my ups and downs in life, as 
well as other people ; for I have climbed to the point 
of the conductor above the cross on the top of St. Peter's, 
in Eome, and left my glove there. I have stood on one 
foot, upon the Guardian Angel's head, on the castle of 
St. Angelo ; and, as I have just told thee, I have been 
low down under the fall of Niagara. But this is neither 
here nor there ; let us proceed to something else. 

When the pain of my foot had become less violent, 
and the swelling somewhat abated, I could not resist 
the inclination I felt to go down to Ontario, and so on 
to Montreal and Quebec, and take Lakes Champlain 
and George in my way back to Albany. 

Just as I had made up my mind to it, a family from 
the Bowling-green, in New York, who was going the 
same route, politely invited me to join their party. 
Nothing could be more fortunate. They were highly 
accomplished. The young ladies sang delightfully ; 
and all contributed their portion, to render the tour 
pleasant and amusing. 



222 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



Travellers have already filled the world with descrip- 
tions of the bold and sublime scenery from Lake Erie 
to Quebec : — 

" The fountain's fall, the river's flow, 
The woody valleys, warm and low; 
The windy summit wild and high, 
Roughly rushing to the sky." 

And there is scarce one of them who has not described 
the achievements of former and latter times, on the 
different battle-grounds. Here, great Wolfe expired. 
Brave Montcalm was carried, mortally wounded, 
through yonder gate. Here fell the gallant Brock ; 
and there General Sheaffee captured all the invaders. 
And in yonder harbour may be seen the mouldering 
remnants of British vessels. Their hour of misfortune 
has long passed away. The victors have now no use 
for them in an inland lake. Some have already sunk, 
while others, dismantled and half-dismasted, are just 
above the water, waiting, in shattered state, that 
destiny which must sooner or later destroy the fairest 
works of man. 

The excellence and despatch of the steam-boats, 
together with the company which the traveller is sure 
to meet with at this time of the year, render the trip 
down to Montreal and Quebec very agreeable. 

The Canadians, are a quiet, and apparently 
diamT Cam ~ a na PPy P e °pl e - They are very courteous 
and affable to strangers. On comparing 
them with the character which a certain female traveller, 
a journalist, has thought fit to give them, the stranger 
might have great doubts whether or not he were 
amongst the Canadians. 

Fortifications Montreal, Quebec, and the Falls of Mont- 
at Quebec. morency, are well worth going to see. They 



FOURTH JOURNEY. 



223 



are making tremendous fortifications at Quebec. It 
will be the Gibraltar of the New World. When one 
considers its distance from Europe, and takes a view 
of its powerful and enterprising neighbour, Virgil's re- 
mark at once rushes into the mind, — 

" Sic vos non vobis nidificatis aves." 

I left Montreal with regret. I had the good fortune 
to be introduced to the Professors of the College. 
These fathers are a very learned and worthy set of 
gentlemen ; and on my taking leave of them, I felt 
a heaviness at heart, in reflecting that I had not more 
time to cultivate their acquaintance. 

In all the way from Buffalo to Quebec, I only met 
with one bug ; and I cannot even swear that it belonged 
to the United States. In going down the St. Lawrence, 
in the steam-boat, I felt something crossing over my 
neck ; and on laying hold of it with my finger and 
thumb, it turned out to be a little half-grown, ill- 
conditioned bug. Now, whether it were going from 
the American to the Canada side, or from the Canada 
to the American, and had taken the advantage of my 
shoulders to ferry itself across, I could not tell. Be 
this as it may, I thought of my uncle Toby and the 
fly ; and so, in lieu of placing it upon the deck, and 
then putting my thumb-nail vertically upon it, I quietly 
chucked it amongst some baggage that was close by, 
and recommended it to get ashore by the first 
opportunity. 

When we had seen all that was worth seeing in 
Quebec and at the Falls of Montmorency, and had 
been on board the enormous ship Columbus, we re- 
turned for a day or two to Montreal, and then proceeded 
to Saratoga by Lakes Champlain and George. 



224 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



The steam-boat from Quebec to Montreal bad above 
five hundred Irish emigrants on board. They 
emf S ants w ^re going " they hardly knew whither, 7 ' 
far away from dear Ireland. It made one's 
heart ache to see them all huddled together, without 
any expectation of ever revisiting their native soil. 
TV T e feared that the sorrow of leaving home for ever, 
the miserable accommodations on board the ship which 
had brought them away, and the tossing of the angry 
ocean, in a long and dreary voyage, would have rendered 
them callous to good behaviour. But it was quite 
otherwise. They conducted themselves with great pro- 
priety. Every American on board seemed to feel for 
them. And then "they were so full of wretchedness. 
jSTeed and oppression stared in their eyes. Upon their 
backs hung ragged misery. The world was not their 
friend." "Poor dear Ireland," exclaimed an aged 
female, as I was talking to her, "I shall never see it 
any more ! " and then her tears began to flow. Pro- 
bably the scenery on the banks of the St. Lawrence 
recalled to her mind the remembrance of spots once 
interesting to her : — 

" The lovely daughter, — lovelier in her tears, 
The fond companion of her father's years, 
Here silent stood,— neglectful of her charms, 
And left her lover's for her father's arms. 
With louder plaints the mother spoke her woes, 
And bless'd the cot where every pleasure rose ; 
And press'd her thoughtless babes with many a tear, 
And clasp'd them close, in sorrow doubly dear. 
While the fond husband strove to lend relief, 
In all the silent manliness of grief." 

"We went a few miles out of our route to take a look 
at the once formidable fortress of Ticonderagcr. It has 
long been in ruins, and seems as if it were doomed to 
moulder quite away. 



FOURTH JOURNEY. 



22,5 



" Ever and anon there falls 
Huge heaps of hoary moulder' d walls. 
But time has seen, that lifts the low 
And level lays the lofty brow, 
Has seen this ruin'd pile complete, 
Big with the vanity of state, 
But transient is the smile of fate." 

The scenery of Lake George is superb ; the inn re- 
markably spacious and well attended ; and the convey - 
Saratoga. ance ^ rom thence to Saratoga very good. He 
must be sorely afflicted with spleen and 
jaundice who, on his arrival at Saratoga, remarks, 
there is nothing here worth coming to see. It is a 
gay and fashionable place ; has four uncommonly fine 
hotels ; its waters, for medicinal virtues, are surpassed 
by none in the known world ; and it is resorted to, 
throughout the whole of the summer, by foreigners and 
natives of the first consideration. Saratoga pleased me 
much ; and afforded a fair opportunity of forming a 
pretty correct idea of the gentry of the United States. 

There is a pleasing frankness, and ease, and becoming 
dignity in the American ladies ; and the good humour, 
and absence of all haughtiness and puppyism in the 
gentlemen, must, no doubt, impress the traveller with 
elevated notions of the company who visit this famous 
spa. 

During my stay here, all was joy, and affability, and 
mirth. In the mornings the ladies played and sang for 
us ; and the evenings were generally enlivened with 
the merry dance. Here I bade farewell to the charm- 
ing family in whose company I had passed so many 
happy days, and proceeded to Albany. 

The stage stopped a little while in the town 
of Troy. The name alone was quite suffi- 
cient to recall to the mind scenes long past and gone. 



226 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



Poor king Priam ! Napoleon's sorrows, sad and piercing 
as they were, did not come up to those of this ill-fated 
monarch. The Greeks first set his town on fire, and 
then began to bully : — 

" Incensa Danai dominantur in rube." 

One of his sons was slain before his face ; " ante ora 
parentuni, coneidit." Another was crushed to mummy 
by boa constrictors ; "immensis orbibus angues." His 
city was razed to the ground, " jacet Ilion ingens." 
And Pyrrhus ran him through with his sword, " capulo 
tenus abdidit ensem." This last may be considered as 
a fortunate stroke for the poor old king. Had his life 
been spared at this juncture he could not have lived 
long. He must have died broken-hearted. He would 
have seen his son-in-law, once master of a noble stud, 
now, for want of a horse, obliged to carry off his father, 
up hill, on his own back, " cessi et sublato, montem 
genitore petivi." He would have heard of his grand- 
son being thrown neck and heels from a high tower, 
" mittitur Astyanax illis de turribus." He would have 
been informed of his wife tearing out the eyes of king 
Odrysius with her finger-nails, " digitos in perfida 
lumina condit." Soon after this, losing all appearance 
of woman, she became a bitch, 

" Perdidit infelix hominis post omnia forrnam," 

and rent the heavens with her howlings, 

" Externasque novo latratu terruit auras." 

Then, becoming distracted with the remembrance of 
her misfortunes, a veteruni memor ilia maloruin/' she 
took off howling into the fields of Thrace, — 

" Turn quo que Sithonios ululavjt mcesta per agros." 



FOURTH JOURNEY. 



227 



J uno, Jove's wife and sister, was heard to declare, that 
poor Hecuba did not deserve so terrible a fate, — 

" Ipsa Jovis conjuxque sororque, 
Eventus Hecubara weruisse negaverit illos." 

Had poor Priam escaped from Troy, one thing, and only 
one thing, would have given him a small ray of satis- 
faction, viz. he would have heard of one of his daughter^ 
nobly preferring to leave this world, rather than live to 
become servant-maid to old Grecian ladies : — 

" Non ego Myrmidonum sedes, Dolopumve superbas, 
Adspiciam, aut Graiis servitum matribus ibo. " 

At some future period, should a foreign armed force, or 
intestine broils, (all which Heaven avert,) raise Troy to 
the dignity of a fortified city, Yirgil's prophecy may 
then be fulfilled, — 

" Atque iterani ad Trojara magmis mittetur Achilles." 

After leaving Troy, I passed through a fine country to 
Albany ; and then proceeded by steam down the Hudson 
to New York. 1 

Travellers hesitate whether to give the 

Philadelphia. _ t ., _ _ _ . _ - 

preference to Philadelphia or to JNew York. 
Philadelphia is certainly a noble city, and its environs 
beautiful ; but there is a degree of quiet and sedate- 
ness in it, which, though no doubt very agreeable to 
the man of calm and domestic habits, is not so attrac- 
tive to one of speedy movements. The quantity of 
white marble which is used in the buildings gives to 
Philadelphia a gay and lively appearance ; but the 
sameness of the streets, and their crossing each other 
at right angles, are somewhat tiresome. The water- 
works which supply the city are a proud monument of 
the skill and enterprise of its inhabitants ; and the 
market is well worth the attention of the stranger. 
Q 2 



228 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



When you go to Philadelphia, be sure not 

Its Museum. .. 1 . 

to iorget to visit the Museum. It will afford 
you a great treat. Some of Mr. Peale's family are con- 
stantly in it, and are ever ready to show the curiosities 
to strangers, and to give them every necessary informa- 
tion. Mr. Peale has now passed his eightieth year, and 
appears to possess the vivacity, and, I may almost add, 
the activity of youth. 

To the indefatigable exertions of this gentleman is 
the western world indebted for the possession of this 
splendid museum. Mr. Peale is, moreover, an excellent 
artist. Look attentively, I pray you, at the portrait he 
has taken of himself, by desire of the State of Penn- 
sylvania. On entering the room he appears in the act 
of holding up a curtain to show you his curiosities. 
The effect of the light upon his head is infinitely 
striking. I have never seen anything finer in the way 
of light and shade. The skeleton of the mammoth is 
a national treasure. I could form but a faint idea of it 
by description, until I had seen it. It is the most 
magnificent skeleton in the world. The city ought 
never to forget the great expense Mr. Peale was put to, 
and the skill and energy he showed, during the many 
months he spent in searching the swamps, where these 
enormous bones had been- concealed from the eyes of 
the world for centuries. 

The extensive squares of this city are ornamented 
with well-grown and luxuriant trees, Its -unremitting 
American attention to literature might cause it to be 
literature. styled the Athens of the United States. 
Here, learning and science have taken up their abode. 
The literary and philosophical associations, the enthu- 
siasm of individuals, the activity of the press, and the 



FOURTH JOURNEY. 



229 



cheapness of the publications, ought to raise the name 
of Philadelphia to an elevated situation in the temple 
of knowledge. 

From the press of this city came Wilson's famous 
" Ornithology." By observing the birds in their native 
haunts, he has been enabled to purge their history of 
numberless absurdities, which inexperienced theorists 
had introduced into it. It is a pleasing and a brilliant 
work. We have no description of birds in any European 
publication that can come up to this. By perusing 
" Wilson's Ornithology " attentively before I left Eng- 
land, I knew where to look for the birds, and imme- 
diately recognised them in their native land, 
white-headed Since his time, I fear that the white- 
eagies. headed eagles have been much thinned. I 
was perpetually looking out for them, but saw very 
few. One or two came now and then, and soared in lofty 
flight over the Ealls of Magara. The Americans are 
proud of this bird in effigy, and their hearts rejoice 
when its banner is unfurled. Could they not then be 
persuaded to protect the white-headed eagle, and allow 
it to glide in safety over its own native forests ? Were 
I an American, I should think I had committed a kind 
of sacrilege in killing the white-headed eagle. The Ibis 
was held sacred by the Egyptians ; the Hollanders 
protect the stork ; the vulture sits unmolested on the 
top of the houses in the city of Angustura ; and Eobin 
Eedbreast, for his charity, is cherished by the English 

" No burial these pretty babes 
Of any man receives, 
Till Robin Redbreast painfully 
Did cover them with leaves." * 



* The fault against grammar is lost in the beauty of the idea. 



230 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



Poor "Wilson was sinoteby the hand of death, before 
he had finished his work. Prince Charles Buonaparte, 
nephew to the late Emperor Xapoleon, aided by some 
of the most scientific gentlemen of Pennsylvania, 
is continuing this valuable and iuteresting publi- 
cation. 

New York, with great propriety, may be called the 
New York, commercial capital of the new world : — 

u Urbs augusta potens, iralli cessura." 

Ere long, it will be on the coast of North America what 
Tyre once was on that of Syria. In her port are the 
ships of all nations ; and in her streets is displayed 
merchandise from all parts of the known world. And 
then the approach to it is so enchanting ! The verdant 
fields, the woody hills, the farms, and country houses, 
form a beautiful landscape as you sail up to the city of 
Xew York. 

its streets Broadway is the principal street. It is 
houses, &e. three miles and a half long. I am at a loss 
to know where to look for a street, in any part of the 
world, which has so many attractions as this. There 
are no steam-engines to annoy you by filling the atmo- 
sphere full of soot and smoke ; the houses have a 
stately appearance ■ while the eye is relieved from the 
perpetual sameness, which is common in most streets, 
by lofty and luxuriant trees. 

American Nothing can surpass the appearance of 
ladies. the American ladies, when they take their 

morning walk, from twelve to three, in Broadway. The 
stranger will at once see that they have rejected the 
extravagant superfluities which appear in the London 
and Parisian fashions ; and have only retained as much 
of those costumes as is becoming to the female form. 



FOURTH JOURNEY. 



231 



This, joined to their own just notions of dress, is what 
renders the E"ew York ladies so elegant in their attire, 
The way they wear the Leghorn hat deserves a remark 
or two. With us, the formal hand of the milliner 
binds down the brim to one fixed shape, and that none 
of the handsomest. The wearer is obliged to turn her 
head full ninety degrees before she can see the person 
who is standing by her side. But in New York the 
ladies have the brim of the hat, not fettered with wire, 
or tape, or riband, but quite free and undulating ; and 
by applying the hand to it, they can conceal or expose 
as much of the face as circumstances require. This 
hiding and exposing of the face, by-the-bye, is certainly 
a dangerous movement, and often fatal to the passing 
swain. I am convinced in my own mind, that many a 
determined and unsuspecting bachelor has been shot 
down by this sudden manoeuvre, before he was aware 
that he was within reach of the battery. 

The American ladies seem to have an abhorrence (aud 
a very just one too) of wearing caps. When one con 
siders for a moment, that women wear the hair long, 
which nature has given them both for an ornament and 
to keep the head warm, one is apt to wonder by what 
perversion of good taste they can be induced to enclose 
it in a cap. A mob cap, a lace cap, a low cap, a high 
cap, a flat cap, a cap with ribands dangling loose, a cap 
with ribands tied under the chin, a peak cap, an angular 
cap, a round cap, and a pyramid cap ! How would 
Canova's Venus look in a mob cap ? If there be any 
ornament to the head in wearing a cap, it must surely 
be a false ornament. The American ladies are per- 
suaded that the head can be ornamented without a cap. 
A rose-bud or two, a woodbine, or a sprig of eglantine, 



232 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



look well in the braided hair ; and if there be raven 
locks, a lily or a snowdrop may be interwoven with 
effect. 

Now that the packets are so safe, and make snch 
quick passages to the United States, it would be as well 
if some of our head milliners w r ould go on board of them, 
in lieu of getting into the Diligence for Paris. They 
would bring back more taste, and less caricature. And 
if they could persuade a dozen or two of the farmers' 
servant girls to return with them, we should soon have 
proof positive, that as good butter and cheese may be 
made w T ith the hair braided up, and a daisy or primrose 
in it, as butter and cheese made in a cap of barbarous 
shape ) washed, perhaps, in soap-suds last new moon. 

New York has very good hotels, and 

Hotels and J & ' 

boarding- genteel boarding-houses. All charges in- 

houses. 5 5 & 

eluded, you do not pay above two dollars 
a-day. Little enough, when you consider the capital 
accommodations, and the abundance of food. 

In this city, as well as in others which I visited, 
everybody seemed to walk at his ease. I could see no 
inclination for jostling ; no impertinent staring at you ; 
nor attempts to create a row in order to pick your 
pocket. I would stand for an hour together in Broad- 
way, to observe the passing multitude. There is cer- 
tainly a gentleness in these people, both to be admired 
and imitated. I could see very few dogs, still fewer 
cats, and but a very small proportion of fat women, in 
the streets of New York. The climate was the only 
thing that I had really to find fault with ; and as the 
autumn was now approaching, I began to think of 
preparing for warmer regions. 

Strangers are apt to get violent colds, on account of 



FOURTH JOURNEY. 



233 



the sudden changes of the atmosphere. The noon 
would often be as warm as tropical weather, 
and the close of day cold and chilly. This 
must sometimes act with severity upon the newly- 
arrived stranger ; and it requires more care and circum- 
spection than I am master of to guard against it. I 
contracted a bad and obstinate cough, which did not 
quite leave me till I had got under the regular heat 
of the sun, near the equator. 

I may be asked, Was it all good fellowship and 
civility during my stay in the United States i 
Did no forward person cause offence? was 
there no exhibition of drunkenness, or swearing, or 
rudeness ; or display of conduct which disgraces civilized 
man in other countries 1 I answer, very few indeed : 
scarce any worth remembering, and none worth noticing. 
These are a gentle and a civil people. Should a tra- 
veller, now and then in the long run, witness a few of 
the scenes alluded to, he ought not, on his return home, 
to adduce a solitary instance or two, as the custom of 
the country. In roving through the wilds of Guiana, 
I have sometimes seen a tree hollow at heart, shattered 
and leafless ; but I did not on that account condemn 
its vigorous neighbours, and put down a memorandum 
that the woods were bad. On the contrary, I made 
allowances : a thunder-storm, the whirlwind, a blight 
from heaven, might have robbed it of its bloom, and 
caused its present forbidding appearance. And, in 
leaving the forest, I carried away the impression, that 
though some few of the trees were defective, the rest 
were an ornament to the wilds, full of uses and virtues, 
and capable of benefiting the world in a superior 
degree. 



234 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



A man generally travels into foreign countries for his 
own ends ; and T suspect there is scarcely an instance 
to be found of a person leaving his own home solely 
with the intention of benefiting those amongst whom 
he is about to travel. A commercial speculation, 
curiosity, a wish for information, a desire to reap benefit 
from an acquaintance with our distant fellow -creatures, 
are the general inducements for a man to leave. his own 
fire-side. This ought never to be forgotten ; and then 
the traveller will journey on under the persuasion that 
it rather becomes him to court than expect to be 
courted, as his own interest is the chief object of his 
travels. With this in view, he will always render 
himself pleasant to the natives ; and they are sure to 
repay his little acts of courtesy with ample interest, 
and with a fund of information which will be of great 
service to him. 

While in the United States, I found our Western 
brother a very pleasant fellow ; but his portrait has 
been drawn in such different shades, by different tra- 
vellers who have been through his territory, that it 
requires a personal interview before a correct idea can 
be formed of his true colours. He is very inquisitive ; 
but it is quite wrong on that account to tax him with 
being of an impertinent turn. He merely interrogates 
you for information ; and when you have satisfied him 
on that score, only ask him in your turn for an account 
of what is going on in his own country, and he will tell 
you everything about it with great good humour, and 
in excellent language. He has certainly hit upon the 
way (but I could not make out by what means) of 
speaking a much purer English language than that 
which is in general spoken on the parent soil. This 



FOURTH JOURNEY. 



235 



astonished me much ; but it is really the case. 
Amongst his many good qualities, he has one unenvi- 
able, and, I may add, a bad propensity : he is inirao 
derately fond of smoking. He may say, that he learned 
it from his nurse, with whom it was once much in 
vogue. In Dutch William's time (he was a man of 
bad taste) the English gentleman could not do without 
his pipe. During the short space of time that Corporal 
Trim was at the inn inquiring after poor Lefevre's 
health, my uncle Toby had knocked the ashes out of 
three pipes. "It was not till my uncle Toby had 
knocked the ashes out of his third pipe," &c. Now 
these times have luckily gone by, and the custom of 
smoking amongst genteel Englishmen has nearly died 
away w T ith them : it is a foul custom ; it makes a foul 
mouth, and a foul place where the smoker stands : 
however, every nation has its whims. John Bull 
relishes stinking venison; a Erenchman depopulates 
whole swamps in quest of frogs ; a Dutchman's pipe is 
never out of his mouth ; a Eussian will eat tallow 
candles ; and the American indulges in the cigar. 
" De gustibus non est disputandum." 

Our Western brother is in possession of a country 
replete with everything that can contribute to the hap- 
piness and comfort of mankind. His code 
oovemmen^ °^ l aws ? purified by experience and common 
sense, has fully answered the expectations 
of the public. By acting up to the true spirit of this 
code, he has reaped immense advantages from it. His 
advancement, as a nation, has been rapid beyond all 
calculation ; and, young as he is, it may be remarked, 
without any impropriety, that he is now actually reading 
a salutary lesson to the rest of the civilized world. 



236 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



It is but some forty years ago that he had the dis- 
pute with his nurse about a dish of tea. She wanted 
to force the boy to drink it according to her own 
receipt. He said, he did not like it, and that it abso- 
lutely made him ill. After a good deal of sparring, 
she took up the birch rod, and began to whip him with 
an uncommon degree of asperity. When the poor lad 
found that he must either drink the nauseous dish of 
tea or be flogged to death, he turned upon her in self- 
defence ; showed her to the outside of the nursery door 
and never more allowed her to meddle with his affairs. 

Since the independence, the population has increased 
from three to ten millions. A fine navy has been built ; 
and everything attended to that could ensure prosperity 
at home, and respect abroad. 

The former wilds of North America bear ample testi- 
mony to the achievements of this enterprising people. 
Forests have been cleared away, swamps drained, canals 
dug, and flourishing settlements established. From the 
shores of the Atlantic an immense column of knowledge 
has rolled into the interior. The Mississippi, the Ohio, 
the Missouri, and their tributary streams, have been 
wonderfully benefited by it. It now seems as if it 
were advancing towards the Stony Mountains ; and, 
probably, will not become stationary till it reaches the 
Pacific Ocean. This almost immeasurable territory 
affords a shelter and a home to mankind in general : 
Jew or Gentile, king's-man or republican, he meets 
with a friendly reception in the United States. His 
opinions, his persecutions, his errors, or mistakes, how- 
ever they may have injured him in other countries, are 
dead, and of no avail on his arrival here. Provided he 
keeps the peace, he is sure to be at rest. 



FOURTH JOURNEY. 



237 



Politicians of other countries imagine that intestine 
feuds will cause a division in this commonwealth ; at 
present there certainly appears to be no reason for such 
a conjecture. Heaven forbid that it should happen. 
The world at large would suffer by it. For ages yet to 
come, may this great commonwealth continue to be the 
United States of North America ! 

The sun was now within a week or two of passing 
into the southern hemisphere, and the mornings and 
evenings were too cold to be comfortable. I embarked 
for the island of Antigua, with the intention 
Embarks £ calling at the different islands in the 

for Antigua. ° 

Caribbean sea, on my way once more towards 
the wilds of Guiana. 

We were thirty days in making Antigua, and thanked 
Providence for ordering us so long a passage. A tre- 
mendous gale of wind, approaching to a hurricane, 
had done much damage in the West Indies. Had our 
passage been of ordinary length, we should inevitably 
have been caught in the gale. 

St. John's is the capital of Antigua. In 
St. John's. . . m . . 

better times it may have had its gaieties and 

amusements : at present, it appears sad and woe-begone. 

The houses, which are chiefly of wood, seem as if they 

have not had a coat of paint for many years ; the streets 

are uneven and ill-paved ; and as the stranger wanders 

through them, he might fancy that they would afford a 

congenial promenade to the man who is about to take 

his last leave of surrounding worldly misery, before he 

hangs himself. 

There had been no rain for some time, so that the 

parched and barren pastures near the town might, with 

great truth, be called Eosinante's own. The mules 



238 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



feeding on them put you in mind of Ovid's description 
of famine. : — 

" Dura cutis, per quant spectari viscera possent." 

It is somewhat singular, that there is not a single river 
or brook in the whole island of Antigua. In this it 
differs from Tartary in the other world \ which, ac- 
cording to old writers, has five rivers ; viz. Acheron, 
Phlegeton, Cocytus, Styx, and Lethe. 

In this island I found the Eed-start, described in 
Wilson's " Ornithology of the United States." I wished 
to learn whether any of these birds remain the whole 
year in Antigua, and breed there ; or whether they all 
leave it for the north when the sun comes out of the 
southern hemisphere * but, upon inquiry, I could get 
no information whatever. 



approach the island. Basseterre, the capital, is a neat 
town, with a handsome public walk in the middle of it, 
well shaded by a row of fine tamarind trees on each 
side. Behind the town, La Souffriere raises its high 
romantic summit ; and, on a clear day, you may see the 
volcanic smoke which issues from it. 

Nearly midway, betwixt* Guadaloupe and Dominica, 
you descry the Saintes. Though high, and bold, and 
rocky, they have still a diminutive appearance when 
compared with their two gigantic neighbours. You 
j ust see Marigalante to windward of them, some leagues 
off, about a yard high in the horizon. 




After passing a dull week here, I sailed 
for Guadaloupe, whose bold and cloud-capped 
mountains have a grand appearance as you 



Island of 
Dominica. 



Dominica is majestic in high and rugged 
mountains. As you sail along it, you cannot 
help admiring its beautiful coffee planta- 



FOURTH JOURNEY. 239 

tions, in places so abrupt and steep, that you would 
pronounce them almost inaccessible. Boseau, the 
capital, is but a small town, and has nothing 

Roseau. . 

attractive except the well-known hospitality 
of the present harbour-master, who is particularly atten- 
tive to strangers, and furnishes them with a world of 
information concerning the West Indies. Boseau has 
seen better days; and you can trace good taste and 
judgment in the way in which the town has originally 
been laid out. 

Some years ago it was visited by a succession of mis- 
fortunes, which smote it so severely, that it has never 
recovered its former appearance. A strong French fleet 
bombarded it ; while a raging fire destroyed its finest 
buildings. Some time after, an overwhelming flood 
rolled down the gullies and fissures of the adjacent 
mountains, and carried all before it. Men, women, 
and children, houses and property, were all swept away 
by this mighty torrent. The terrible scene was said to 
beggar all description, and the loss was immense. 

Dominica is famous for a large species of frog, which 
the inhabitants keep in readiness to slaughter for the 
table. In the woods of this island, the large rhinoceros 
beetle is very common ; it measures above six inches 
in length. In the same woods is found the beautiful 
iiumming-bird, the breast and throat of which are of a 
brilliant changing purple. I have searched for this 
bird in Brazil, and through the whole of the wilds from 
the Bio Branco, which is a branch of the Amazons, to 
the river Paumaron, but never could find it. I was 
told by a man in the Egyptian-hall, in Piccadilly, that 
this humming-bird is found in Mexico ; but upon 
questioning him more about it, his information seemed 



240 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



to have been acquired by hearsay ; and so I concluded 
that it does not appear in Mexico. I suspect that it is 
never found out of the Antilles. 

After leaving Dominica, you soon reach the 
grand and magnificent island of Martinico. 
St. Pierre, its capital, is a fine town, and possesses 
every comfort. The inhabitants seem to pay consider- 
able attention to the cultivation of the tropical fruits. 
A stream of water runs down the streets with great 
rapidity, producing a pleasing effect as you pass along. 

Here I had an opportunity of examining a cuckoo 
which had just been shot. It was exactly the same as 
the metallic cuckoo in Wilson's " Ornithology." They 
told me it is a migratory bird in Martinico. It pro- 
bably repairs to this island after its departure from the 
United States. 

At a little distance from Martinico, the celebrated 
Diamond rock rises in insulated majesty out of the sea. 
It was fortified during the last war with Trance, and 
bravely defended by an English captain. 

In a few hours from Martinico, you are 
at St. Lucie, whose rough and towering 
mountains fill you with sublime ideas, as you approach 
its rocky shore. The town Castries is quite 

C/3.s1jriGS 

embayed. It was literally blown to pieces 
by the fatal hurricane, in which the unfortunate governor 
and his lady lost their lives. Its present forlorn and 
gloomy appearance, and the grass which is grown up in 
the streets too plainly show that its hour of joy is 
passed away ; and that it is in mourning, as it were, 
with the rest of the British West Indies. 

From St. Lucie, I proceeded to Barbadoes in quest of 
a conveyance to the Island of Trinidad. 



FOURTH JOURNEY. 



241 



Near Bridge-town, the capital of Barbadoes, I saw 
the metallic cuckoo, already alluded to. 

Barbadoes is no longer the merry island it 
Barbadoes. wag w k en j v i s it e d it some years ago : — 

" Infelix habitum, temporis hujus habet." 

There is an old song, to the tune of La Belle Catha- 
rine, which must evidently have been composed in 
brighter times : — 

" Come, let us dance and sing, 
While Barbadoes. bells do ring ; 
Quashi scrapes the fiddle-string, 
And Venus plays the lute." 

Quashi's fiddle was silent, and mute was the lute of 
Venus, during my stay in Barbadoes, The difference 
betwixt the French and British islands was very 
striking. The first appeared happy and content ; the 
second were filled with murmurs and complaints. The 
late proceedings in England, concerning slavery, and 
the insurrection in Demerara, had evidently caused the 
gloom. The abolition of slavery is a ques- 
tion full of benevolence and fine feelings, 
difficulties and danger : — 

" Tantum ne noceas, dum vis prodesse videto, 1 

It requires consummate prudence, and a vast fund of 
true information, in order to draw just conclusions on 
this important subject. Phaeton, by awkward driving, 
set the world on fire : " Sylvse cum montibus ardent." 
Dtedalus gave his son a pair of wings, without consider- 
ing the consequence ; the boy flew out of all bounds, 
lost his wings, and tumbled into the sea :— 



Icarus, Icariis nomina fecit aquis. 
R 



212 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



When the old man saw what had happened, he damned 
his own handicraft in wing-making : " devovitque suas 
artes." Prudence is a cardinal virtue : — 

" Omnia consulta mente gerenda tegens." 

Foresight is half the battle. "Hombre apercebido, 
medio combatido/' says Don Quixote, or Sancho, I do 
not remember which. Had Queen Eess weighed well 
in her own mind the probable consequences of this 
lamentable traffic, it is likely she would not have been 
owner of two vessels in Sir John Hawkins's squadron, 
which committed the first robbery in negro flesh on the 
coast of Africa. As philanthropy is the very life and 
soul of this momentous question on slavery, which is 
certainly fraught with great difficulties and danger, 
perhaps it would be as well at present for the nation 
to turn its thoughts to poor ill-fated Ireland, where 
oppression, poverty, and rags make a heart-rending 
appeal to the feelings of the benevolent. 

But to proceed. There was another thing which 
added to the dulness of Earbacloes, and which seemed 
to have considerable effect in keeping away strangers 
from the island. The legislature had passed a most 
extraordinary bill, by virtue of which every person who 
arrives at Earbadoes is obliged to pay two dollars, and 
two dollars more on his departure from it. It is called 
the alien bill; and every Earbadian who leaves or 
returns to the island, and every Englishman too, pays 
the tax ! 

Finding no vessel here for Trinidad, I 

Embarks , , , ' 

forDemerara. embarked in a schooner for Demerara, 
landed there after being nearly stranded on 
a sand-bank, and proceeded without loss of time to the 



FOURTH JOURNEY. 



243 



forests in the interior. It was the dry season, which 
renders a residence in the woods very delightful. 

There are three species of jacamar to be found on the 
different sand-hills and dry savannas of Demerara ; but 
there is another much larger and far more beautiful to 
be seen when you arrive in that part of the country 
where there are rocks. The jacamar has no 
me Jacamar. affinit y to tlie woo dpecker or king-fisher 

(notwithstanding what travellers affirm), either in its 
haunts or anatomy. The jacamar lives entirely on 
insects, but never goes in search of them. It sits 
patiently for hours together on the branch of a tree, 
and when the incautious insect approaches, it flies at it 
with the rapidity of an arrow, seizes it, and generally 
returns to eat it on the branch which it had just quitted. 
It has not the least attempt at song, is very solitary, 
and so tame, that you may get within three or four 
yards of it before it takes flight. The males of all 
the different species which I have examined have white 
feathers on the throat. I suspect that all the male 
jacamars hitherto discovered have this distinctive mark. 
I could learn nothing of its incubation. The Indians 
informed me that one species of jacamar lays its eggs 
in the wood-ants' nests, which are so frequent in the 
trees of Guiana, and appear like huge black balls. I 
wish there had been proof positive of this ; but the 
breeding time was over ; and in the ants' nests which 
I examined I could find no marks of birds having ever 
been in them. Early in January the jacamar is in fine 
plumage for the cabinet of the naturalist. The largest 
species measures ten inches and a half from the point 
of the beak to the end of the tail ; its name amongst 
the Indians is Una-waya-adoucati, that is, grandfather 

r 2 



244 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



of the jacamar. It is certainly a splendid bird ; and in 
the brilliancy and changeableness of its metallic colours, 
it yields to none of the Asiatic and African feathered 
tribe. The colours of the female are nearly as bright 
as those of the male, but she wants the white feathers 
on the throat. The large jacamar is pretty common 
about two hundred miles up the river Demerara. 

Here I had a fine opportunity once more 
t^TsMu 6 Q f examining the three-toed Sloth. He was 
in the house with me for a day or two. 
Had I taken a description of him as he lay sprawling 
on the floor, I should have misled the world, and 
injured natural history. On the ground he appeared 
really a bungled composition, and faulty at all points ; 
awkwardness and misery were depicted on his counte- 
nance ; and when I made him advance he sighed as 
though in pain. Perhaps it was, that by seeing him 
thus, out of his element as it were, that the Count 
de Buffon, in his history of the sloth, asks the question 
— " Why should not some animals be created for 
misery, since, in the human species, the greatest number 
of individuals are devoted to pain from the moment of 
their existence ? " Were the question put to me, I 
would answer, I cannot conceive that any of them are 
created for misery. That thousands live in misery there 
can be, no doubt ; but then, misery has overtaken them 
in their path through life, and wherever man has come 
up with them, I should suppose they have seldom 
escaped from experiencing a certain proportion of 
misery. 

After fully satisfying myself that it only leads the 
world into error to describe the sloth while he is on 
■the ground, or in any place except in a tree, I carried- 



FOURTH JOURNEY. 



245 



the one I had in iny possession to his native haunts. 
As soon as he came in contact with the branch of a 
tree, all went right with him. I could see, as he 
climbed up into his own country, that he was on the 
right road to happiness ; and felt persuaded more than 
ever that the world has hitherto erred in its conjec- 
tures concerning the sloth, on account of naturalists not 
having given a description of him when he was in the 
only positiou in which he ought to have been described, 
namely, clinging to the branch of a tree. 

As the appearance of this part of the country bears 
great resemblance to Cayenne, and is so near to it, I 
was in hopes to have found the Grande Gobe Mouche 
of Eufion, and the septicoloured Tangara, both of which 
are common in Cayenne; but after many diligent 
searches, I did not succeed ; nor could I learn from the 
Indians that they had ever seen those two species of 
birds in these parts. 

Here I procured the Grossbeak, with a 

bell 16 Gl0SS " ricn scarlet bocl y> and black liead and tnroat - 

Buffon mentions it as coming from America, 
I had been in quest of it for years, but could never see 
it, and concluded that it was not to be found in Deme- 
rara. This bird is of a greenish brown before it acquires 
its rich plumage. 

Amongst the bare roots of the trees, aiong- 

Procures a ° . , 

large species f this part of the river, a red crab 

of Owl. r 

sometimes makes its appearance, as you are 
passing up and down. It is preyed upon by a large 
species of owl, which I was fortunate enough to procure. 
Its head, back, wings, and tail, are of so dark a brown, 
as almost to appear black. The breast is of a some- 
what lighter brown. The belly and thighs are of a 



246 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



dirty yellow white. The feathers round the eyes are 
of the same dark brown as the rest of the body ; and 
then comes a circle of white, which has much the 
appearance of the rim of a large pair of spectacles. I 
strongly suspect that the dirty yellow white of the 
belly and thighs has originally been pure white ; and 
that it has come to its present colour by means of the 
bird darting down upon its prey in the mud. But this 
is mere conjecture. 

Here too, close to the river, I frequently 

saw the bird called Sun-bird by the English 
colonists, and Tirana by the Spaniards in the Oroonoque. 
It is very elegant ; and in its outward appearance ap- 
proaches near to the heron tribe ; still it does not live 
upon fish. Flies and insects are its food ; and it takes 
them just as the heron takes fish, by approaching near 
and then striking with its beak at its prey, so quick, 
that it has no chance to escape. The beautiful mixture 
of grey, yellow, green, black, white, and chestnut in 
the plumage of this bird, baffles any attempt to give a 
description of the distribution of them which would be 
satisfactory to the reader. 

There is something remarkable in the 
Tinamou. eat great Tinamou, which I suspect has hitherto 

escaped notice. It invariably roosts in trees ; 
but the feet are so very small in proportion to the body 
of this bulky bird, that they can be of no use to it in 
grasping the branch ; and, moreover, the hind toe is so 
short, that it does not touch the ground when the bird 
is walking. The back part of the leg, just below the 
knee, is quite flat, and somewhat concave. On it are 
strong pointed scales, which are very rough, and catch 
your finger as you move it along from the knee to the 



FOURTH JOURNEY. 



247 



toe. J\Tow, by means of these scales, and the particular 
flatness of that part of the leg, the bird is enabled to 
sleep in safety upon the branch of a tree. 

At the close of day, the great Tinamou gives a loud, 
monotonous, plaintive whistle, and then immediately 
springs into the tree. By the light of the full moon, 
the vigilant and cautious naturalist may see him sitting 
in the position already described. 

The small Tinamou has nothing that can 
Tinamou^ 111 be called a tail. It never lays more than 
one egg, which is of a chocolate colour. It 
makes no nest, but merely scratches a little hollow in 
the sand, generally at the foot of a tree. 

Here we have an instance of a bird, the size of a 
partridge, and of the same tribe, laying only one egg, 
while the rest of the family, from the peahen to the 
quail, are known to lay a considerable number. The 
foot of this bird is very small in proportion, but the 
back part of the leg bears no resemblance to that of 
the larger tinamou ; hence one might conclude that it 
sleeps upon the ground. 

Independent of the hollow trees, the vampires have 
another hiding-place. They clear out the inside of the 
large ants' nests, and then take possession of the shell. 
I had gone about half a day down the river, to a part 
of the forest where the wallaba-trees were in great 
plenty. The seeds had ripened, and I was in hopes to 
have got the large scarlet ara, which feeds on them. 
But, unfortunately, the time had passed away, and the 
seeds had fallen. 

While ranging here in the forest, we stopped under 
an ants' nest ; and, by the dirt below, conjectured that 
it had got new tenants. Thinking it no harm to dis- 



248 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



lodge them, " vi et armis," an Indian boy ascended the 
tree • but, before he reached the nest, out flew above a 
dozen vampires. 

I have formerly remarked that I wished 

The Vampire. , . . 

to nave it m my power to say, that I had 
been sucked by the Vampire. I gave them many an 
opportunity, but they always fought shy ; and though 
they now sucked a young man of the Indian breed very 
severely, as he was sleeping in his hammock in the 
shed next to mine, they would have nothing to do 
with me. His great toe seemed to have all the attrac- 
tions. I examined it minutely as he was bathing it in 
the river at daybreak. The midnight surgeon had 
made a hole in it, almost of a triangular shape, and the 
blood was then running from it apace. His hammock 
was so defiled and stained with clotted blood, that he 
was obliged to beg an old black woman to wash it. As 
she was taking it down to the river side, she spread it 
out before me, and shook her head. I remarked, that 
I supposed her own toe was too old and tough to invite 
the Yampire-doctor to get his supper out of it ; and she 
answered, with a grin, that doctors generally preferred 
young people. 

IT obody has yet been able to inform me how it is 
that the vampire manages to draw such a large quantity 
of blood, generally from the toe ; and the patient, all 
the time, remains in a profound sleep. I have never 
heard of an instance of a man waking under the opera- 
tion. On the contrary, he continues in a sound sleep, 
and at the time of rising, his eyes first inform him, that 
there has been a thirsty thief on his toe. 
its teeth. The teeth of the vampire are very sharp, 

and not unlike those, of a rat. If it be that 



FOURTH JOURNEY. 



249 



he inflicts the wound with his teeth (and he seems to 
have no other instruments), one would suppose that 
the acuteness of the pain would cause the person who 
is sucked, to awake. We are in darkness in this 
matter ; and I know of no means by which one might 
be enabled to throw light upon it. It is to be hoped 
that some future wanderer through the wilds of 
Guiana will be more fortunate than I have been, and 
catch this nocturnal depredator in the fact. I 
have once before mentioned that I killed a vampire 
which measured thirty-two inches from wing to wing 
extended ; but others, which I have since examined, 
have generally been from twenty to twenty-six inches 
in dimension. 

The large humming-bird, called by the Indians Kara- 

bimiti, invariably builds its nest in the 
biinSi Kara " s l enc l- er branches of the trees which hang 

over the rivers and creeks. In appearance, 
it is like brown tanned leather, without any particle of 
lining. The rim of the nest is doubled inwards, and I 
always conjectured that it had taken this shape on ac- 
count of the body of the bird pressing against it while 
she was laying her eggs. But this was quite a wrong 
conjecture. Instinct has taught the bird to give it this 
shape, in order that the eggs may be prevented from 
rolling out. 

The trees on the river's bank are particularly exposed 
to violent gusts of wind, and while I have been sitting 
in the canoe, and looking on, I have seen the slender 
branch of the tree which held the humming-bird's nest 
so violently shaken, that the bottom of the inside of 
the nest has appeared, and had there been nothing at 
the rim to stop the eggs, they must inevitably have 



250 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



been jerked out into the water. I suspect the humming- 
bird never lays more than two eggs. I never found 
more than two in any of the- many nests which have 
come in my way. The eggs were always white, with- 
out any spots on them. 

Probably travellers have erred in asserting that the 
monkeys of South America throw sticks and 
Monkeys. ^ their pursuers. I have had fine op- 

portunities of narrowly watching the different species 
of monkeys which are found in the wilds, betwixt the 
Amazons and the Oroonoque. I entirely acquit them 
of acting on the offensive. When the monkeys are in 
the high trees over your head, the dead branches will 
now and then fall down upon you, having been broken 
off as the monkeys pass along them ; but they are never 
hurled from their hands. 

Monkeys, commonly so called, both in the 

Three classes iii j.- j_ -u i j • ± 

of Monkeys, old and new continent, may be classed into 
three grand divisions ; namely, the ape, 
which has no tail whatever ; the baboon, which has 
only a short tail ; and the monkey, which has a long 
tail. There are no apes, and no baboons as yet dis- 
covered in the Xew World. Its monkeys may be very 
well and very briefly ranged under two heads ; namely, 
those with hairy and bushy tails ; and those whose 
tails are bare of hair underneath, about six inches from 
the extremity. Those with hairy and bushy tails climb 
just like the squirrel, and make no use of the tail to 
help them from branch to branch. Those which have 
the tail bare underneath towards the end, find it of 
infinite advantage to them, in their ascent and descent. 
They apply to the branch of the tree, as though it were 
a supple finger, and frequently swing by it from the 



FOURTH JOURNEY. 



251 



branch like the pendulum of a clock. It answers all 
the purposes of a fifth hand to the monkey, as 
naturalists have already observed. 

The large red monkey of Demerara is not 

The large red . 

Monkey of De- a baboon, though it goes by that name, 
having a long prensile tail.* Nothing can 
sound more dreadful than its nocturnal howlings. 
While lying in your hammock in these gloomy and 
immeasurable wilds, you hear him howling at intervals, 
from eleven o'clock at night till daybreak. You would 
suppose that half the wild beasts of the forest were 
collecting for the work of carnage. Now, it is the 
tremendous roar of the jaguar, as he springs on his 
prey ; now, it changes to his terrible and deep -toned 
growlings, as he is pressed on all sides by superior 
force ; and now, you hear his last dying moan, beneath 
a mortal wound. 

Some naturalists have supposed that these awful 
sounds, which you would fancy are those of enraged 
and dying wild beasts, proceed from a number of the 
red monkeys howling in concert. One of them alone is 
capable of producing all these sounds ; and the anato- 
mist, on an inspection of the trachea, will be fully 
satisfied that this is the case. When you look at him, 
as he is sitting on the branch of a tree, you will see a 
lump in his throat, the size of a large hen's egg. In 
dark and cloudy weather, and just before a squall of 
rain, this monkey will often howl in the day-time; 
and if you advance cautiously, and get under the 
high and tufted tree where he is sitting, you may 
have a capital opportunity of witnessing his wonderful 

* T believe prensile is a new-coined word. I have seen it, but do not 
remember where. 



252 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



powers of producing these dreadful and discordant 
sounds. 

His flesh is good food; but when skinned, 
Monkej^ the his appearance is so like that of a young 
one of our own species, that a delicate 
stomach might possibly revolt at the idea of putting a 
knife and fork into it. However, I can affirm, from 
experience, that after a long and dreary march through 
these remote forests, the flesh of this monkey is not 
to be sneezed at, when boiled in Cayenne pepper, 
or roasted on a stick over a good fire. A young one 
tastes not unlike kid, and the old ones have somewhat 
the flavour of he-goat. 

I mentioned, in a former adventure, that I had hit 
upon an entirely new plan of making the skins of quad- 
rupeds retain their exact form and feature. Intense 
application to the subject has, since that period, enabled 
me to shorten the process, and hit the character of an 
animal to a very great nicety, even to the preservation 
of the pouting lip, dimples, warts, and wrinkles on the 
face. I got a fine specimen of the howling monkey, 
and took some pains with it, in order to show the im- 
mense difference that exists betwixt the features of this 
monkey and those of man. 

I also procured an animal which has caused not a 
little speculation and astonishment. In my opinion, 
his thick coat of hair, and great length of tail, put his 
species out of all question ; but then, his face and head 
cause the inspector to pause for a moment, before he 
ventures to pronounce his opinion of the classification. 
He was a large animal, and as I was pressed for day- 
light, and, moreover, felt no inclination to have the 
whole weight of his body upon my back, I contented 



FOURTH JOURNEY. 



253 



myself with, his head and shoulders, which I cut off : 
and have brought them with me to Europe.* I have 
since found that I acted quite right in doing so, having 
had enough to answer for. The head alone, without 
saying anything of his hands and feet, and of his tail, 
which is an appendage, Lord Karnes asserts, belongs 
to us. 

The features of this animal are quite of the Grecian 
cast ; and he has a placidity of countenance which 
shows that things went well with him when in life. 
Some gentlemen of great skill and talent, on inspecting 
his head, were convinced that the whole series of its 
features has been changed. Others again have hesitated, 
and betrayed doubts, not being able to make up their 
minds, whether it be possible that the brute features 
of the monkey can be changed into the noble counte- 
nance of man. — " Scinditur vulgus." One might argue 
at considerable length on this novel subject : and per- 
haps, after all, produce little more than prolix pedantry. 
" Vox et pneterea nihil." 

Let us suppose for an instant that it is a new 
species. Well; "Una golondrina no hace verano ; " One 
swallow does not make summer, as Sancho Panza says. 
Still, for all that, it would be well worth while going 
out to search for it ; and these times of Pasco-Peruvian 
enterprise are favourable to the undertaking. Perhaps, 
gentle reader, you would wish me to go in quest of 
another. I would beg leave respectfully to answer, 
that the way is dubious, long, and dreary; and though, 
unfortunately, I cannot allege the excuse of " me pia 

* My young friend, Mr. J. H. Foljambe, eldest son of Thomas Foljamre, 
Esq. of Wakefield, has made a drawing of the head and shoulders of this 
animal (see Frontispiece), and it is certainly a most correct and striking 
likeness of the original. 



254: 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



conjux detinet," still I would fain crave a little repose. 
I have already been a long while errant : — 

1 ' Longa mihi exilia, et vastum maris gequor aravi, 
Ne mandate mini, nam ego sum defessus agendo." 

Should anybody be induced to go, great and innumer- 
able are the discoveries yet to be made in those remote 
wilds ; and should he succeed in bringing home, even 
a head alone, with features as perfect as those of that 
which I have brought, far from being envious of him, I 
should consider him a modern Alcides, fully entitled to 
register a thirteenth labour. ls T ow if, on the other 
hand, we argue, that this head in question has had all 
its original features destroyed, and a set of new ones 
given to it, by what means has this hitherto unheard- 
of change been effected ? Xobody in any of our 
museums has yet been able to restore the natural 
features to stuffed animals ; and he who has any doubts 
of this, let him take a living cat or dog and compare 
them with a stuffed cat or dog in any of the first-rate 
museums. A momentary glance of the eye would soon 
settle his doubts on this head. 

If I have succeeded in effacing the features of a 
brute, and putting those of a man in their place, we 
might be entitled to say that the sun of Proteus has 
risen to our museums : — " 

" Unius hie faciem, facies transformat in omnes ; 
Nunc homo, mine tigris ; nunc equa, nunc mulier.'* 

If I have effected this, we can now give to one side 
of the skin of a man's face the appearance of eighty 
years, and to the other side that of blooming seventeen. 
We could make the forehead and eyes serene in youth- 
ful beauty, and shape the mouth and jaws to the 
features of a malicious old ape. Here is a new field 



FOULTH JOURNEY. 



255 



opened to the adventurous and experimental natu- 
ralist : I have trodden it up and down till I am almost 
weary. To get at it myself I have groped through an 
alley, which may be styled, in the words of Ovid, — 

" Arduus, obliquus, caligine densus opaca." 

I pray thee, gentle reader, let me out awhile. Time 
passes on apace ; and I want to take thee to have a 
peep at the spots where mines are supposed to exist in 
Guiana. As the story of this singular head has, pro- 
bably, not been made out to thy satisfaction, perhaps 
(I may say it nearly in Corporal Trim's words) on some 
long and dismal winters evening, but not now, I may 
tell thee more about it ; together with that of another 
head, which is equally striking. 

It is commonly reported, and I think there is no 
reason to doubt the fact, that when Demerara and 
Essequibo were under the Dutch flag, there were mines 
of gold and silver opened near to the river Essequibo. 
The miners were not successful in their undertaking, 
and it is generally conjectured that their failure pro- 
ceeded from inexperience. 

Now, when you ascend the Essequibo, some hundred 
miles above the place where these mines are said to be 
found, you get into a high, rocky, and mountainous 
country. Here many of the mountains have a very 
barren aspect, producing only a few stinted shrubs, and 
here and there a tuft of coarse grass. I could not learn 
that they have ever been explored, and at this day 
their mineralogy is totally unknown to us. The Indians 
are so thinly scattered in this part of the country, 
that there would be no impropriety in calling it 
uninhabited : — 

" Apparent rari errantes in gurgite vasto." 



256 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



It remains to be yet learnt, whether this portion of 
Guiana be worth looking after, with respect to its 
supposed mines. The mining speculations at present 
are flowing down another channel. The rage in 
England for working the mines of other states has 
now risen to such a pitch, that it would require a 
considerable degree of caution in a mere wanderer 
of the woods in stepping forward to say anything 
that might tend to raise or depress the spirits of the 
speculators. 

A question or two, however, might be asked. When 
the revolted colonies shall have repaired in some 
measure the ravages of war, and settled their own 
political economy upon a firm foundation, will they 
quietly submit to see foreigners carrying away those 
treasures which are absolutely part of their own soil, and 
which necessity (necessity has no law) forced them to 
barter away in their hour of need 1 ISTow, if it should 
so happen that the masters of the country begin to re- 
pent of their bargain, and become envious of the riches 
which foreigners carry off, many a teasing law might 
be made, and many a vexatious enaction might be put 
in force, that would, in all probability, bring the specu- 
lators into trouble and disappointment. 

Besides this consideration, there is another circum- 
stance which ought not to be overlooked. I allude to 
the change of masters throughout nearly the whole of 
America. Tt is a curious subject for the European 
philosopher to moralize upon, and for the politician to 
examine. The more they consider it, the more they 
will be astonished. If we may judge by what has 
already taken place, we are entitled to predict that, in 
a very few years more, no European banner will be 



FOURTH JOURNEY. 



257 



seen to float in any part of the New World. Let us 
take a cursory view of it. 

England, some years ago, possessed a large portion 
of the present United States ; France had Louisiana ; 
Spain held the Floridas, Mexico, Darien, Terra Firma, 
Buenos Ayres, Paraguay, Chili, Peru, and California ; 
and Portugal ruled the whole of Brazil. All these 
immense regions are now independent states. England, 
to be sure, still has Canada, Nova Scotia, and a few 
creeks on the coast of Labrador ; also a small settle- 
ment in Honduras, and the wilds of Demerara and 
Essequibo ; and these are all. France has not a foot 
of ground, exoept the forests of Cayenne. Portugal has 
lost every province ; Spain is blockaded in nearly her 
last citadel ; and the Dutch nag is only seen in Surinam. 
Nothing more now remains in Europe of this immense 
continent, where, but a very few years ago, she reigned 
triumphant. 

With regard to the West India Islands, they may 
be considered as the mere outposts of this mammoth 
domain. St. Domingo has already shaken off her old 
masters, and become a star of observation to the rest 
of the sable brethren. The anti-slavery associations of 
England, full of benevolence and activity, have opened 
a tremendous battery upon the last remaining forts 
which the lords of the old continent still hold in the 
New World, and, in all probability, will not cease firing 
till they shall have caused the last flag to be struck of 
Europe's late mighty empire in the transatlantic regions. 
It cannot well be doubted, but that the sable hordes in 
the West Indies will like to follow good example, when- 
ever they shall have it in their power to do so. 

Now, with St. Domingo as an example before them, 
s 



258 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



how long will it be before they try to raise themselves 
into independent states ? And if they should succeed 
in crushing us in these our last remaining tenements, I 
would bet ten to one that none of the new governments 
will put on mourning for our departure out of the lSTew 
World. We must well remember that our own govern- 
ment w r as taxed with injustice and oppression by the 
United States during their great struggle ; and the 
British press for years past has, and is still teeming 
with every kind of abuse and unbecoming satire against 
Spain and Portugal, for their conduct towards the now 
revolted colonies. 

France also comes in for her share of obloquy. Now, 
this being the case, will not America at large wish most 
devoutly for the day to come when Europe shall have 
no more dominion over her 1 Will she not say to us, 
" Our new forms of government are very different from 
your old ones i We will trade with you ; but we shall 
always be very suspicious of you, as long as you retain 
possession of the West Indies, which are, as we may 
say, close to our door-steads. You must be very cautious 
how you interfere with our politics ; for, if we find you 
meddling with them, and by that means cause us to 
come to loggerheads, we shall be obliged to send you 
back to your own homes, three or four thousand miles 
across the Atlantic ; and then, with that great ditch 
betwixt us, w r e may hope we shall be good friends." 
He who casts his eye on the East Indies, will there see 
quite a different state of things. The conquered dis- 
tricts have merely changed one European master for 
another; and I believe there is no instance of any 
portion of the East Indies throwing off the yoke of the 
Europeans, and establishing a government of their own. 



FOURTH JOURNEY. 



259 



Ye who are versed in politics, and stud} 7 the rise and 
fall of empires, and know what is good for civilized 
man, and what is bad for him, — or, in other words, 
what will make him happy, and what will make him 
miserable, — tell us how comes it that Europe has lost 
almost her last acre in the boundless expanse of ter- 
ritory which she so lately possessed in the West, and 
still contrives to hold her vast property in the extensive 
regions of the East ? 

But whither am I going! I find myself on a new 
and dangerous path. Pardon, gentle reader, this sudden 
deviation. Methinks I hear thee saying to me, — 

"Tramite quo tendis, majoraque viribus aud.es." 

I grant that I have erred, but I will do so no more. In 
general I avoid politics; they are too heavy for me, 
and I am aware .that they have caused the fall of many 
a strong and able man : they require the shoulders of 
Atlas to support their weight. 

When I was in the rocky mountains of Macoushia, in 
Cocks of the m onth of June, 1812, I saw four young 
Rock. Cocks of the Eock in an Indian's hut ; they 

had been taken out of the nest that week. They were 
of a uniform dirty brown colour, and by the position of 
the young feathers upon the head, you might see that 
there would be a crest there when the bird arrived at 
maturity. By seeing youug ones in the month of June, 
I immediately concluded that the old cock of the rock 
would be in fine plumage from the end of November to 
the beginning of May ; and that the naturalist who was 
in quest of specimens for his museum ought to arrange 
his plans in such a manner as to be able to get into 
Macoushia during these months. However, I find now 

s 2 



260 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



that no exact period can be fixed; for in December, 
1824, an Indian in the river Denierara gave rne a young 
cock of the rock not a month old, and it had just been 
brought from the Macoushi country. By having a 
young specimen at this time of the year, it puts it out 
of one's power to say at what precise time the old birds 
are in full plumage. I took it on board a ship with me 
for England ; but it was so very susceptible of cold, 
that it shivered and died, three days after we had 
passed Antigua. 

If ever there should be a great demand for large sup- 
inciian-rub- P^ es °f gum-elastic, commonly called Indian- 
rubber, it may be procured in abundance fkr 
away in the wilds of Demerara and Essequibo. 

Some years ago, when I was in the Macoushi country, 
An Indian there was a capital trick played upon me 
trick - about Indian-rubber. It is almost too good 

to be left out of these Wanderings, and it shows that the 
wild and uneducated Indian is not without abilities. 
Weary and sick, and feeble through loss of blood, I 
arrived at some Indian huts, which were about two 
hours distant from the place where the gum-elastic trees 
grew. After a day and a night's rest, I went to them, 
and with my own hands made a fine ball of pure Indian- 
rubber ; it hardened immediately as it became exposed 
to the air, and its elasticity was almost incredible. 

While procuring it, exposure to the rain, which fell 
in torrents, brought on a return of inflammation in the 
stomach, and I was obliged to have recourse again to 
the lancet, and to use it with an unsparing hand. I 
wanted another ball, but was not in a state the next 
morning to proceed to the trees. A fine interesting 
young Indian, observing my eagerness to have it, ten- 



FOURTH JOURNEY. 



261 



dered his services, and asked two handfuls of fish-hooks 
for his trouble. 

Off he went, and, to my great surprise, returned in a 
very short time. Bearing in mind the trouble and time 
it had cost me to make a ball, I could account for this 
Indian's expedition in no other way, except that, being 
an inhabitant of the forest, he knew how to go about • 
his work in a much shorter way than I did. His ball, 
to be sure, had very little elasticity in it. I tried it 
repeatedly, but it never rebounded a yard high. The 
young Indian watched me with great gravity; and when 
I made him understand that I expected the ball would 
dance better, he called another Indian, who knew a 
little English, to assure me that I might be quite easy 
on that score. The young rogue, in order to render me 
a complete dupe, brought the new moon to his aid. 
He gave me to understand that the ball was like the 
little moon, which he pointed to, and by the time it 
grew big and old, the ball would bounce beautifully. 
This satisfied me, and I gave him the fish-hooks, which 
he received without the least change of countenance. 

I bounced the ball repeatedly for two months after, 
but I found that it still remained in its infancy. At 
last I suspected that the savage (to use a vulgar phrase) 
had come Yorkshire over me, and so I determined to 
find out how he had managed to take me in. I cut the 
ball in two, and then saw what a taut trick he had 
played me. It seems he had chewed some leaves into 
a lump, the size of a walnut, and then dipped them in 
the liquid gum-elastic. It immediately received a coat 
about as thick as a sixpence. He then rolled some 
more leaves round it, and gave it another coat. He 
seems to have continued this process, till he had made 



WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



the ball considerably larger than the one I had pro- 
cured ; and, in order to put his roguery out of all 
chance of detection, he made the last and outer coat 
thicker than a dollar. This Indian would, no doubt, 
have thriven well in some of our great towns. 

Finding that the rainy season was coming on, I left 
• Returns home ^ ne wilds of Demerara and Essequibo with 
to England. regret? to wards tlie cloge of D ecem b e r, 1 824, 

and reached once more the shores of England, after a 
long and unpleasant passage. 

Ere we part, kind reader, I could wish to draw a 
Concluding little of thy attention to the instructions 
remarks. which are to be found at the end of this 
book. Twenty years have now rolled away since I 
first began to examine the specimens of zoology in our 
museums. As the system of preparation is founded in 
error, nothing but deformity, distortion, and dispro- 
portion will be the result of the best intentions and 
utmost exertions of the workman. Canova's education, 
taste, and genius enabled him to present to the world 
statues so correct and beautiful, that they are worthy 
of universal admiration. Had a common stone-cutter 
tried his hand upon the block out of which these statues 
were sculptured, what a lamentable want of symmetry 
and fine countenance there- would have been ! Now, 
when we reflect that the preserved specimens in, our 
museums and private collections are always done upon 
a wrong principle, and generally by low and illiterate 
people, whose daily bread depends upon the shortness 
of time in which they can get through their work — and 
whose opposition to the true way of preserving spe- 
cimens can only be surpassed by their obstinacy in 
adhering to the old method, — can we any longer wonder 



FOURTH JOURNEY. 



263 



at their want of success, or hope to see a single specimen 
produced that will be worth looking at 1 With this I 
conclude, hoping that thou hast received some informa- 
tion, and occasionally had a smile upon thy countenance, 
while perusing these 6 6 Wanderings and begging, at 
the same time, to add, that, 



Well I know thy penetration 

Many a stain and blot will see, 
In the languid long narration 

Of my sylvan errantry. 

For the pen too oft was weary, 

In the wandering writer's hand, 
As he roved through deep and dreary 

Forests, in a distant land. 

Show thy mercy, gentle reader, 

Let him not entreat in vain; 
It will be his strength's best feeder, 

Should he ever go again. 

And who knows how soon, complaining 

Of a cold and wifeless home, 
He may leave it, and again in 

Equatorial regions roam ? 

c. w. * 



ON 

PEESEKVING BIRDS 

FOR 

CABIXETS OF NATUKAL HISTOEY. 



"Were you to pay as much attention to birds as the 
sculptor does to the human frame, you would imme- 
diately see, on entering a museum, that the specimens 
are not well done. 

This remark will not be thought severe, when you 
reflect that, — that which once was a bird has probably 
been stretched, stuffed, stiffened, and wired by the 
hand of a common clown. Consider, likewise, how the 
plumage must have been disordered by too much 
stretching or drying, and perhaps sullied, or at least 
deranged, by the pressure of a coarse and heavy hand, 
— plumage which, ere life had fled from within it, was 
accustomed to be touched by nothing rougher than the 
dew of heaven, and the pure and gentle breath of air. 

In dissecting, three things are necessary 

Dissecting 

to ensure success, viz. a penknife, a hand not 
coarse or clumsy, and practice. The first will furnish 
you with the means, the second will enable you to 
dissect, and the third cause you to dissect well. These 
may be called the mere mechanical requisites. 



ON PRESERVING BIRDS. 



265 



In stuffing, yon require cotton, a needle and thread, 
ffi a little stick, the size of a common knitting- 
needle, glass eyes, a solution of corrosive sub- 
limate, and any kind of a common temporary box to 
hold the specimen. These also may go under the same 
denomination as the former. But if you wish to excel 
in the art, if you wish to he in ornithology what Angelo 
was in sculpture, you must apply to profound study, 
and your own genius to assist you. And these may he 
called the scientilic requisites. 

. - ± You must have a complete knowledge of 

Requisite to 1 9 

have a thorough ornithological anatomy. You must pay close 

knowledge of & J . 

Ornithological attention to the form and attitude of the 

Anatomy. 

bird, and know exactly the proportion each 
curve, or extension, or contraction, or expansion of any 
particular part bears to the rest of the body. In a 
word, you must possess Promethean boldness, and bring 
down fire, and animation, as it were, into your pre- 
served specimen. 

Eepair to the haunts of birds, on plains and moun- 
Examinethe tains, forests, swamps, and lakes, and give 
the n orders f of U P y° nr ^ me *o examine the economy of 
birds. ^.j ie (j;ff eren ^ orders of birds. 

Then you will place your eagle, in attitude command- 
ing, the same as ^Nelson stood in, in the day of battle, 
on the Victory's quarter-deck. Your pie will seem 
crafty, and just ready to take night, as though fearful 
of being surprised in some mischievous plunder. Your 
sparrow will retain its wonted pertness, by means of 
placing his tail a little elevated, and giving a moderate 
arch to the neck. Your vulture will show his sluggish 
habits, by having his body nearly parallel to the earth ; 
his wings somewhat drooping, and their extremities 



266 



ON PRESERVING BIRDS. 



under the tail, instead of above it, — expressive of 
ignoble indolence. 

Your dove will be in artless, fearless innocence • look- 
ing mildly at you, with its neck, not too much stretched, 
as if uneasy in its situation ; or drawn too close into 
the shoulders, like one wishing to avoid a discovery ; 
but in moderate, perpendicular length, supporting the 
head horizontally, which will set off the breast to the 
best advantage. And the breast ought to be conspi- 
cuous, and have this attention paid to it : for when a 
young lady is sweet and gentle in her manners, kind 
and affable to those around her ; when her eyes stand 
in tears of pity for the woes of others, and she puts a 
small portion of what Providence has blessed her with 
into the hand of imploring poverty and hunger, then 
we say, she has the breast of a turtle-dove. 

You will observe how beautifully the fea- 
thers of a bird are arranged \ one falling 
over the other in nicest order ; and that, where this 
charming harmony is interrupted, the defect, though 
not noticed by an ordinary spectator, will appear im- 
mediately to the eye of a naturalist. Thus, a bird not 
wounded, and in perfect feather, must be procured if 
possible ; for the loss of feathers can seldom be made 
good ; and where the deficiency is great, all the skill of 
the artist will avail him little in his attempt to conceal 
the defect ; because, in order to hide it, he must con- 
tract the skin, bring down the upper feathers, and 
shove in the lower ones, which would throw all the 
surrounding parts into contortion. 

You will also observe, that the whole of the skin 
does not produce feathers, and that it is very tender 
where the feathers do not grow. The bare parts are 



ON PRESERVING BIRDS. 



267 



admirably formed for expansion about the throat and 
stomach ; and they fit into the different cavities of the 
body at the wings, shoulders, rump, and thighs, with 
wonderful exactness; so that in stuffing the bird, if 
you make an even rotund surface of the skin, where 
these cavities existed, in lieu of reforming them, all 
symmetry, order, and proportion are lost for ever. 

You must lay it down as an absolute rule, that the 
bird is to be entirely skinned, otherwise you can never 
succeed in forming a true and pleasing specimen. 

You will allow this to be just, after reflecting a 
moment on the nature of the fleshy parts and tendons," 
which are often left in : 1st, they require to be well 
seasoned with aromatic spices ; 2dly, they must be put 
into the oven to dry ; 3dly, the heat of the fire, and 
the natural tendency all cured flesh has to shrink and 
become hard, render the specimen withered, distorted, 
and too small ; 4thly, the inside then becomes like a 
ham, or any other dried meat. Ere long the insects 
claim it as their own ; the feathers begin to drop off, 
and you have the hideous spectacle of death in ragged 
plumage. 

Wire is of no manner of use, but, on the contrary, a 
great nuisance ; for where it is introduced, a disagree- 
able stiifness and derangement of symmetry follow. 

The head and neck can be placed in any attitude, the 
body supported, the wings closed, extended, or elevated, 
the tail depressed, raised, or expanded, the thighs set 
horizontal or oblique, without any aid from wire. 
Cotton will effect all this. 

A very small proportion of the skull bone, say, from 
the forepart of the eyes to the bill, is to be left in ; 
though even this is not absolutely necessary. Part of 



268 



ON PRESERVING BIRDS. 



the wing-bones, the jaw-bones, and half of the thigh- 
bones, remain. Everything else, flesh, fat, eyes, bones, 
brains, and tendons, are all to be taken away. 

While dissecting, it will be of use to keep 
regions? 1 dl ~ 111 Blind, — That, in taking off the skin from 
the body, by means of your fingers and a 
little knife, you must try to shove it in lieu of pulling 
it, lest you stretch it. 

That you must press as lightly as possible on the 
bird, and every now and then take a view of it, to see 
that the feathers, &c. are all right. 

That, when you come to the head, you must take 
care that the body of the skin rests on your knee ; 
for if you allow it to dangle from your hand, its own 
weight will stretch it too much. 

That, throughout the whole operation, as fast as you 
detach the skin from the body, you must put cotton 
immediately betwixt the body and it ; and this will 
effectually prevent any fat, blood, or moisture from 
coming in contact with the plumage. Here it may be 
observed, that on the belly you rind an inner skin, 
which keeps the bowels in their place. By a nice opera- 
tion with the knife, you can cut through the outer skin 
and leave the inner skin whole. Attention to this will 
render your work very clean ; so that, with a little care 
in other parts, you may skin a bird without even soiling 
your finger ends. 

As you can seldom get a bird without shooting it, a 
line or two on this head will be necessary. If the bird 
be still alive, press it hard with your ringer and thumb, 
just behind the wings, and it will soon expire. Carry 
it by the legs, and then the body being reversed, the 
blood cannot escape down the plumage through the 



ON PRESERVING BIRDS. 



269 



shot holes. As blood will often have issued out before 
you have laid hold of the bird, find out the shot holes, 
by dividing the feathers with your fingers and blowing 
on them, and then, with your penknife, or the leaf of 
a tree, carefully remove the clotted blood, and put a 
little cotton on the hole. If, after all, the plumage has 
not escaped the marks of blood ; or if it has imbibed 
slime from the ground, wash the part in water, without 
soap, and keep gently agitating the feathers, with your 
fingers, till they are quite dry. Were you to wash 
them, and leave them to dry by themselves, they would 
have a very mean and shrivelled appearance. 

In the act of skinning a bird, you must 
ning Ct thetod" either have it upon a table, or upon your 
knee. Probably, you will prefer your knee ; 
because when you cross one knee over the other, and 
have the bird upon the uppermost, you can raise it to 
your eye, or lower it, at pleasure, by means of the foot 
on the ground, and then your knee will always move 
in unison with your body, by which much stooping 
will be avoided and lassitude prevented. 

With these precautionary hints in mind, we will now 
proceed to dissect a bird. Suppose we take a hawk. 
The little birds will thank us, with a song, for his death, 
for he has oppressed them sorely; and in size he is 
just the thing. His skin is also pretty tough, and the 
feathers adhere to it. 

We will put close by us a little bottle of the solution 
of corrosive sublimate in alcohol ; also a stick like a 
common knitting needle, and a handful or two of 
cotton. Now fill the mouth and nostrils of the bird 
with cotton, and place it upon your knee on its back, 
with its head pointing to your left shoulder. Take 



270 



ON PRESERVING BIRDS. 



hold" of the knife with your two first fingers and 
thumb, the edge upwards. You must not keep the 
point of the knife perpendicular to the body of the 
bird ; because, were you to hold it so, you would cut 
the inner skin of the belly, and thus let the bowels out. 
To avoid this, let your knife be parallel to the body, 
and then you will divide the outer skin with great 
ease. 

Begin on the belly below the breast-bone, and cut 
down the middle, quite to the vent. This done, put 
the bird in any convenient position, and separate the 
skin from the body, till you get at the middle joint of 
the thigh. Cut it through, and do nothing more there 
at present, except introducing cotton all the way on 
that side, from the vent to the breast-bone. Do exactly 
the same on the opposite side. 

ISTow place the bird perpendicular, its breast resting 
on your knee, with its back towards you. Separate the 
skin from the body on each side of the vent, and never 
mind at present the part from the vent to the root of 
the tail. Bend the tail gently down to the back, and 
while your finger and thumb are keeping down the 
detached parts of the skin on each side of the vent, 
cut quite across, and deep, till you see the back-bone, 
near the oil-gland at the ^root of the tail. Sever the 
back-bone at the joint, and then you have all the root 
of the tail, together with the oil-gland, dissected from 
the body. Apply plenty of cotton. 

After this, seize the end of the back-bone with your 
finger and thumb : and now you can hold up the bird 
clear of your knee, and turn it round and round, as 
occasion requires. While you are holding it thus, con- 
trive, with the help of your other hand and knife, by 



ON PRESERVING BIRDS, 



271 



cutting and shoving, to get the skin pushed up till you 
come to where the wing joins on to the body. 

Forget not to apply cotton ; cut this joint through ; 
do the same at the other wing, add cotton, and gently 
push the skin over the head ; cut out the roots of the 
ears, which lie very deep in the head, and continue 
skinning till you reach the middle of the eye ; cut the 
nictitating membrane quite through, otherwise you 
would tear the orbit of the eye ; and after this, nothing 
difficult intervenes to prevent your arriving at the root 
of the bill. 

When this is effected, cut away the body, leaving a 
little bit of skull, just as much as will reach to the 
forepart of the eye ; clean well the jaw-bones, fasten a 
little cotton at the end of your stick, dip it into the 
solution, and touch the skull and corresponding part 
of the skin, as you cannot well get to these places 
afterwards. From the time of pushing the skin over the 
head, you are supposed to have the bird resting upon 
your knee ; keep it there still, and with great caution 
and tenderness return the head through the inverted 
skin, and when you see the beak appearing, pull it 
very gently till the head comes out unruffled and 
unstained. 

You may now take the cotton out of the mouth ; cut 
away all the remaining flesh at the palate, and what- 
ever may have remained at the under jaw. 

Here is now before you the skin, without loss of any 
feathers, and all the flesh, fat, and uncleaned bones out 
of it, except the middle joint of the wings, one bone of 
the thighs, and fleshy root of the tail. The extreme 
point of the wing is very small, and has no flesh on it, 
comparatively speaking, so that it requires no attention, 



272 



ON PRESERVING BIRDS. 



except touching it with, the solution from the outside. 
Take all the flesh from the remaining joint of the 
wing, and tie a thread about four inches long to the end 
of it ; touch all with the solution, and put the wing- 
bone back into its place. In baring this bone you 
must by no means pull the skin; you would tear it 
to pieces beyond all doubt, for the ends of the long 
feathers are attached to the bone itself; you must push 
off the skin with your thumb-nail and fore-finger. 
Now skin the thigh quite to the knee ; cut away all 
flesh and tendons, and leave the bone : form an arti- 
ficial thigh round it with cotton ; apply the solution, 
and draw back the skin over the artificial thigh : the 
same to the other thigh. 

Lastly, proceed to the tail; take out the inside of 
the oil-gland, remove all the remaining flesh from the 
root, till you see the ends of the tail feathers ; give it 
the solution, and replace it. Now take out all the cotton 
which you have been putting into the body from time 
to time to preserve the feathers from grease and stains. 
Place the bird upon your knee on its back ; tie together 
the two threads which you had fastened to the end of 
the wing-joints, leaving exactly the same space betwixt 
them as your knowledge in anatomy informs you 
existed there when the bird was entire ; hold the 
skin open with your finger and thumb, and apply 
the solution to every part of the inside. Neglect 
the head and neck at present ; they are to receive it 
afterwards. 

Fill the body moderately with cotton, lest the feathers 
on the belly should be injured whilst you are about 
the following operation. You must recollect that half 
of the thigh, or in other words, one joint of the thigh- 



ON PRESERVING BIRDS. 



273 



bone, has been cut away. Now, as this bone never 
moved perpendicularly to the body, but on the contrary 
in an oblique direction, of course, as soon as it is cut 
off, the remaining part of the thigh and leg, having 
nothing now to support them obliquely, must naturally 
fall to their perpendicular. Hence the reason why the 
legs appear considerably too long. To correct this, 
take your needle and thread, fasten the end round the 
bone inside, and then push the needle through the skin 
just opposite to it. Look on the outside, and after 
finding the needle amongst the feathers, tack up the 
thigh under the wing with several strong stitches. 
This will shorten the thigh, and render it quite capable, 
of supporting the weight of the body without the help, 
of wire. This done, take out every bit of cotton, ex- 
cept the artificial thighs, and adjust the wing-bones 
(which are connected by the thread) in the most even 
manner possible, so that one joint does not appear to, 
lie lower than the other ; for unless they are quite 
equal, the wings themselves will be unequal, when you 
come to put them in their proper attitude. Here then 
rests the shell of the poor hawk, ready to receive, from 
your skill and judgment, the size, the shape, the features 
-and expression it had, ere death, and your dissecting 
hand, brought it to its present still, and formless state. 
The cold hand of death stamps deep its mark upon 
the prostrate victim. When the heart ceases to beat, 
and the blood no longer courses through the veins, the 
features collapse, and the whole frame seems to shrink 
within itself. If then you have formed your idea of 
the real appearance of the bird from a dead specimen, 
you will be in error. With this in mind, and at the 
same time forming your specimen a trifle larger than 



274 



ON PRESERVING BIRDS. 



life, to make up for what it will lose in drying, you will 
reproduce a bird that will please you. 

It is now time to introduce the cotton for an arti- 
ficial body, by means of the little stick like a knitting 
needle ; and without any other aid or substance than 
that of this little stick and cotton, your own genius 
must produce those swellings and cavities, that just 
proportion, that elegance and harmony of the whole, so 
much admired in animated nature, so little attended 
to in preserved specimens. After you have introduced 
the cotton, sew up the orifice you originally made in 
the belly, beginning at the vent. And from time to 
time, till you arrive at the last stitch, keep adding a 
little cotton, in order that there may be no deficiency 
there. Lastly, dip your stick into the solution, and 
put it down the throat three or four times, in order 
that every part may receive it. 

When the head and neck are filled with cotton quite 
to your liking, close the bill as in nature. A little bit 
of bees'-wax at the point of it will keep the mandibles 
in their proper place. A needle must be stuck into the 
lower mandible perpendicularly. You will shortly see 
the use of it. Bring also the feet together by a pin, 
and then run a thread through the knees, by which you 
may draw them to each other, as near as you judge 
proper. Nothing now remains to be added but the 
eyes. With your little stick make a hollow in the 
cotton within the orbit, and introduce the glass eyes 
through the orbit. Adjust the orbit to them, as in 
nature, and that requires no other fastener. 

Your close inspection of the eyes of animals will 
already have informed you that the orbit is capable of 
receiving a much larger body tlian that part of the eye 



ON PRESERVING BIRDS. 



275 



which appears within it when in life. So that, were 
yon to proportion yonr eye to the size the orbit is 
capable of receiving, it would be far too large. In- 
attention to this has caused the eyes of every specimen, 
in the best cabinets of natural history, to be out of all 
proportion. To prevent this, contract the orbit, by 
means of a very small delicate needle and thread, at 
that part of it furthest from the beak. This may be 
done with such nicety, that the stitch cannot be ob- 
served ; and thus you have the artificial eye in true 
proportion. 

After this, touch the bill, orbits, feet, and former 
oil-gland at the root of the tail, with the solution, and 
then you have given to the hawk everything necessary, 
except attitude, and a proper degree of elasticity, two 
qualities very essential. 

Procure any common ordinary box ; fill one end of 
it, about three-fourths up to the top, with cotton, 
forming a sloping plane'. Make a moderate hollow in 
it to receive the bird. Now take the hawk in your 
hands, and, after putting the wings in order, place it 
in the cotton, with its legs in a sitting posture. The 
head will fall down. Never mind. Get a cork, and 
run three pins into the end, just like a three-legged 
stool. Place it under the bird's bill, and run the 
needle, which you formerly fixed there, into the head 
of the cork. This will support the bird's head ad- 
mirably. If you wish to lengthen the neck, raise the 
cork, by putting more cotton under it. If the head is 
to be brought forward, bring the cork nearer to the end 
of the box. If it requires to be set backwards on the 
shoulders, move back the cork. 

As in drying, the back part of the neck will shrink 



276 



ON PRESERVING BIRDS. 



more than the fore part, and thus throw the beak 
higher than you wish it to be, putting you in mind 
of a star-gazing horse, prevent this fault, by tying a 
thread to the beak, and fastening it to the end of the 
box with a pin or needle. If you choose to elevate 
the wings, do so, and support them with cotton ; and 
should you wish to have them particularly high, apply 
a little stick under each wing, and fasten the end of 
them to the side of the box with a little bees'-wax. 

If you would have the tail expanded, reverse the 
order of the feathers, beginning from the two middle 
ones. When dry, replace them in their true order, 
and the tail will preserve for ever the expansion you 
have given it. Is the crest to be erect t Move the 
feathers in a contrary direction to that in which they 
lie, for a day or two, and it will never fall dowji after. 

Place the box anywhere in your room, out of the 
influence of the sun, wind, and fire, for the specimen 
must dry very slowly, if you v/ish to reproduce every 
feature. On this account, the solution of corrosive 
sublimate is uncommonly serviceable ; for at the same 
time that it totally prevents putrefaction, it renders 
the skin moist and flexible for many days. While 
the bird is drying, take it out, and replace it in its 
position once every day. -Then if you see that any 
part begins to shrink into disproportion, you can easily 
remedy it. 

The small covert feathers of the wings are. apt to 
rise a little, because the skin will come in contact 
with the bone which remains in the wing. Pull gently 
the part that rises, with your finger and thumb, for a 
day or two. Press the feathers down. The skin will 
adhere no more to the bone, and they will cease to rise. 



ON PRESERVING BIRDS. 



277 



Every now and then touch and retouch all the 
different parts of the features, in order to render them 
distinct and visible, correcting at the same time any 
harshness, or unnatural risings or sinkings, flatness or 
rotundity. This is putting the last finishing hand 
to it. 

In three or four days the feet lose their natural elas- 
ticity, and the knees begin to stiffen. When you 
observe this, it is time to give the legs any angle you 
wish, and arrange the toes for a standing position, or 
curve them to your finger. If you wish to set the bird 
on a branch, bore a little hole under each foot, a little 
way up the leg ; and having fixed two proportional 
spikes on the branch, you can, in a moment, transfer 
the bird from your finger to it, and from it to your 
finger, at pleasure. 

When the bird is quite dry, pull the thread out of 
the knees, take away the needle, &c. from under the 
bill, and all is done. In lieu of being stiff with wires, 
the cotton will have given a considerable elasticity to 
every part of your bird ; so that, when perching on 
your finger, if you press it down with your other hand, 
it will rise again. You need not fear that your hawk 
will alter, or its colours fade. The alcohol has intro- 
duced the sublimate into every part and pore of the 
skin, quite to the roots of the feathers. Its use is two- 
fold. 1st. It has totally prevented all tendency to 
putrefaction ; and thus a sound skin has attached itself 
to the roots of the feathers. You may take hold of a 
single one, and from it suspend five times the weight 
of the bird. You may jerk it ; it will still adhere to 
the skin, and, after repeated trials, often break short. 
2dly. As no part of the skin has escaped receiving par 



278 



ON PRESERVING BIRDS. 



tides of sublimate contained in the alcohol, there is not 
a spot exposed to the depredation of insects • for they 
will never venture to attack any substance which has 
received corrosive sublimate. 

You are aware that corrosive sublimate is the most 
fatal poison to insects that is known. It is antipu- 
trescent — so is alcohol ; and they are both colourless — 
of course they cannot leave a stain behind them. The 
spirit penetrates the pores of the skin with wonderful 
velocity, deposits invisible particles of the sublimate, 
and flies off. The sublimate will not injure the skin, 
and nothing can detach it from the parts where the 
alcohol has left it.* 

Furs of animals, immersed in this solution, will 
retain their pristine brightness and durability in any 
climate. 

Take the finest curled feather from a lady's head, 
dip it in the solution, and shake it gently till it be 
dry ; you will find that the spirit will fly off in a few 
minutes, not a curl in the feather will be injured, and 
the sublimate will preserve it from the depredation of 
the insect. 

Perhaps it may be satisfactory to add here, that, 
some years ago, I did a bird upon this plan in Deme- 
rara. It remained there two years. It was then con- 
veyed to England, where it stayed five months, and 
returned to Demerara. After being four years more 
there, it was conveyed back again through the West 
Indies to England, where it has now been near five 
years, unfaded and unchanged. 

* All the feathers require to "be touched with the solution, in order that 
they may "be preserved from the depredation of the moth. The surest way 
of proceeding is, to immerse the bird in the solution of corrosive sublimate, 
and then dry it before you begin to dissect it. 



ON PRESERVING BIRDS. 



279 



On reflecting that this bird has been twice in the 
temperate and torrid zone, and remained some years 
in the hot and humid climate of Demerara, only six 
degrees from the line, and where almost everything 
becomes a prey to the insect, and that it is still as sound 
and bright as when it was first done, it will not be 
thought extravagant to surmise that this specimen will 
retain its pristine form and colours for years after the 
hand that stuffed it has mouldered into dust. 

I have shown this art to the naturalists in Brazil, 
Cayenne, Demerara, Oroonoque, and Rome, and to the 
royal cabinets of Turin and Florence. A severe accident 
prevented me from communicating it to the cabinet of 
Paris, according to my promise. A word or two more, 
and then we will conclude. 

A little time and experience will enable you to pro- 
duce a finished specimen. " Mox similis volucri, mox 
vera volucris." If your early performance should not 
correspond with your expectations, clo not let that cast 
you down. You cannot become an adept all at once. 
The poor hawk itself, which you have just been dis- 
secting, waited to be fledged before it durst rise on 
expanded pinion ; and had parental aid and frequent 
practice, ere it could soar with safety and ease beyond 
the sight of man. 

Little more remains to be added, except that what 
has been penned down with regard to birds, may be 
applied, in some measure, to serpents, insects, and four- 
footed animals. 

Should you find these instructions too tedious, let 
the wish to give you every information plead in their 
defence. They might have been shorter ; but Horace 
says, by labouring to be brief you become obscure. 



280 



ON PRESERVING BIRDS. 



If, by their means, you should be enabled to procure 
specimens from foreign parts in better preservation 
than usual, so that the naturalist may have it in his 
power to give a more perfect description of them than 
has hitherto been the case, — should they cause any 
unknown species to be brought into public view, and 
thus add a little more to the page of natural history, — 
it will please me much. But should they, unfortunately 
tend to cause a wanton expense of life — should they 
tempt you to shoot the pretty songster warbling near 
your door, or destroy the mother as she is sitting on 
the nest to warm her little ones, or kill the father as 
he is bringing a mouthful of food for their support — 
oh, then ! deep indeed will be the regret that I ever 
wrote them. 

Adieu, 

Charles Waterton. 



finis 



R. C LAY, SON, AN.) TAYLOR, PRINTERS, BREAD STREET HILL. 




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into consideration the recent light that has been thrown upon the subject, and 
the obsolete character of all former histories, we may say that it is the only 
one. *'" — Kitto's Journal of Sacred Literature. 

KE1NTRICK. — PHOENICIA : its History and Geography, 

&c. 8vo. 16s. 

"Another very valuable contribution to the exact knowledge of Ancient 
History, which he has already enriched by his two volumes on ' Egypt under 
the Pharaohs,' and by his admirable and philosophical 'Essay on Primaeval 
History.' " — National Review. 

"We heartily recommend this book to our readers, as not only being the 
best, or indeed the only thoroughly good English work on Phoenicia, but as 
being rich in instructive matter for the merchant and manufacturer of the 
present day, no less than for the student of antiquity." — Christian Reformer. 

KENRICK— ESSAY ON PRIMAEVAL HISTORY. 

Post 8VO. 55. 

PEIYEOSE.— LECTUEES 0$T THE HISTOEY OE 

THE BIBLE.— THE PENTATEUCH. By the Rev. T. T. Penrose, M.A. 
Vicar of Coleby and Prebendary of Lincoln Cathedral. 12mo. 5s. 

TENKA1STT.— SEEMOiNfS, Preached to the British Con- 

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WATERTON. — WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AME- 

RICA. With Original Instructions for Preserving Birds for Cabinets of 
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kind in the English language." — Times. 



CLASSICAL WORKS AND BOOKS OF EDUCATION. 
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fidem Manuscript oriun emendavit Notas, et Glossarium adjecit C. J. Blom- 
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VINC'TUS. Editio Octava. 8vo. 8*. 

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THBBAS. Editio Sexta. 8vo. 8s. 

COOKESLEY. — ARISTOPHANES AVES, from the 

Text of Dindorf, with English Notes. By H. P. Cookesley, B.A. For 
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HALL. — A TREATISE ON PLATTE AND SPHERI- 
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Mathematics, King's College, London. Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. 

KEN RICK. — AN INTRODUCTION TO GREEK 

PROSE COMPOSITION. By John Kenrick, M.A. Part I. — Declension, 
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Part II.— Syntax. Second Edition. 12mo. 4s. 6d. KEY.— Parts I. and II. 
4^. 6d. each. 

KENRICK.— THE EGYPT OE HERODOTUS ; being 

the Second and part of the Third Books of his History. From the Text of 
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KENRICK. — AN ABRIDGMENT OF ZUMPT'S 

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KENRICK. — EXERCISES ON LATIN SYNTAX: 

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MAJOR. —INITIA HOMERICA; The First and Second 

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MAJOR— MILTON'S PARADISE LOST, -with Notes, 

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